Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

MERSEYSIDE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Read the Third time and passed.

CORNWALL COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for consideration read.

To be considered upon Wednesday 25 July at Seven o' clock.

COUNTY OF LANCASHIRE BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for consideration read.

To be considered upon Tuesday 24 July.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for further consideration, as amended, read.

To be further considered upon Thursday 26 July.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Crime Prevention

Mr. Evennett: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in developing his Department's approach to crime prevention.

Mr. Ottaway: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what priority he gives to crime prevention strategy; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Douglas Hurd): Crime prevention is crucially important, and there has been encouraging progress on the lines urged in our joint departmental circular in January. Police forces have launched a wide variety of local initiatives. Twenty-two forces have started neighbourhood watch schemes and 11 more plan to do so. We and the Schools Council have produced a teaching package for secondary schools. We shall be launching a television and press crime prevention campaign in London and the midlands in October.

Mr. Evennett: As crime prevention has a vital role to play in our fight against crime and the criminal, what contributions have the neighbourhood watch schemes made to crime prevention, and is my right hon. Friend satisfied that these are being implemented quickly enough?

Mr. Hurd: These schemes are gathering speed and there are now, for example, 390 neighbourhood watchdog schemes in London alone. I agree with my hon. Friend about their importance. They help to deter criminals and prevent crime, and they bring police into close touch with the communities they serve.

Mr. Ottaway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways to prevent crime would be to block the loophole whereby criminals from this country are able to go to Spain without fear of prosecution? Would not the best way to block this loophole, rather than signing a bilateral treaty with Spain, be to sign the European convention on extradition, which, contrary to popular belief, provides a measure of protection to the suspect?

Mr. Hurd: My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has taken an initiative with the Spanish Government and arranged that official discussions should take place. On the wider point, my right hon. and learned Friend has also said that we propose to issue a consultative Green Paper later this year, so that we may consider whether there are ways in which our own requirements on extradition might be relaxed. That is a necessary first step to clear our minds before we further consider the European convention.

Mr. Fatchett: Does not crime prevention depend to a great extent on public co-operation? Is there not in many parts of the country profound alienation between the police and the mining communities? What steps does the Minister intend to take to restore confidence in the police within those communities?

Mr. Hurd: Of course crime prevention depends on co-operation, and that co-operation is forthcoming. As to the policing of the miners' dispute, the hon. Gentleman should address his questions to those who decided to run the dispute on the basis of violence and intimidation.

Mr. Loyden: Does the Minister agree that the major role of the police in combating crime has been deeply affected by the provocative use of police on picket lines, and that crimes such as muggings, loan sharking and the use of drugs are not being dealt with because of the way that the police are being directed into a political battle against the miners?

Mr. Hurd: There is no evidence for that. Once again, I do not think that many people would agree with the implication that the police should remain inactive when they see efforts being made illegally to prevent those workers who have decided to work—whether at the coal face or driving lorries—from doing so.

Mr. Proctor: Given that there is growing public concern about the increasing number of armed robberies in which criminals use shotguns, why is my right hon. Friend reluctant to revise the law on shotgun certificates?

Mr. Hurd: We do not see any clear connection between those two points. However, as we have already announced, we intend to introduce proposals for increasing the penalties available to deal with those who use firearms in the course of violent crimes.

Mr. Dubs: How can it help crime prevention when incidents occur such as at Calverton colliery in Nottinghamshire, in which, according to our evidence, women pickets were humiliated, degraded and abused——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to stop a Front Bench spokesman, but this question concerns crime prevention.

Prisons (Building and Refurbishment)

Dr. Twinn: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what resources have been committed to the Government's accelerated programme of prison building and refurbishment.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Leon Brittan): We are currently planning to build 14 new prisons at an overall cost of about £246 million. In addition, we are spending almost £72 million this year on repair and redevelopment of the existing prison estate.

Dr. Twinn: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's commitment to resources to the prison programme. Will he comment on how that commitment will help the problem of prison overcrowding?

Mr. Brittan: Fourteen new prisons will provide about 6,600 new places, and, in addition, some 4,000 new places will be provided at existing establishments. The effect of that, on present trends, is that we should eliminate prison overcrowding by the end of the decade.

Mr. Meadowcroft: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that even when a prison extension is urgently needed, as at Leeds prison, it is hardly the most popular development in any neighbourhood? Might it not be a good idea to be generous to those whose homes will be demolished by such extensions, by giving them some compensation for the disturbance?

Mr. Brittan: I am sure that it is right that proper compensation should be made. However, I think that there is an increasing understanding that arrangements can be made for building prisons in a way that does no harm to the local community. After all, prisons meet an important social need.

Mr. Chapman: Has my right hon. and learned Friend estimated the resources wasted during new prison and extension building as a result of design changes being made after construction has commenced? That causes a significant increase in contract prices. With good management, those changes should be sorted out before construction begins.

Mr. Brittan: I have not made any such estimate, but if my hon. Friend has an example of where excessive cost has been caused as a result of what he has described, I should naturally want to look into it very carefully.

Mr. Jun Callaghan: Do the Government intend to implement the proposals of the past and present Select Committees on Education, Science and Arts in connection with prison education and improving the resources, buildings and refurbishments available to prisons?

Mr. Brittan: On that score, I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said in the debate earlier this month.

Shops Act 1950

Mr. Montgomery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to be able to publish the report of the committee of inquiry into the proposals to amend the Shops Act.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): As soon as possible after my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has received it—which we expect to be in the early autumn.

Mr. Montgomery: Does my hon. Friend agree that the present law has been brought into disrepute by random prosecutions on the part of local authorities? Should not the law be changed so that it is more in line with present shopping trends?

Mr. Mellor: As I said in February last year, when the House unceremoniously turfed out a proposal to do just that, the present law is deeply anomalous and unsatisfactory.

Mr. Latham: Is my hon. Friend aware that, while most of us agree with him about the present law, there are plenty of divided opinions about the best way to solve the problem? Is he further aware that if he brings forward firm proposals to the House some of us will expect them to be dealt with on a free vote?

Mr. Mellor: It has been the opinion of successive Governments that that is what should be done. It is not for me to anticipate what the climate will be like once the report has been received. One reason that lay behind our decision to establish the report was to try to find more common ground than was apparent when we last debated the matter.

Mr. Pavitt: When the report is received, will the hon. Gentleman give serious consideration to the problems that arise for employees who are on rates and conditions under the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, compared with competition arising from places which are completely independent? Will he give serious consideration to the rights of workers in this respect?

Mr. Mellor: The inquiry had the benefit of a number of assessors, including an assessor nominated by USDAW, who, I feel sure, brought that sort of point to bear on its deliberations.

Prison Officers (Recruitment)

Mr. Wood: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many more prison officers will be recruited to man the new and refurbished prisons which are planned.

Mr. Hurd: Of the 5,000 extra prison officers whom we plan to recruit between 1 April this year and 31 March, 1988, 1,230 will be needed to man new or refurbished accommodation. I am circulating in the Official Report the establishments concerned, the number of prison officers estimated to be needed for each, and the year in which they are expected to come into operation.

Mr. Wood: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information. It is important for the proper conduct of prisons that we have both the right numbers and morale in the prison service. Is my right hon. Friend happy in both those regards?

Mr. Hurd: I am not happy yet. I agree with my hon. Friend that prison officers do a remarkably difficult job well and that both their numbers and morale are of high importance.

Mr. Corbett: Is the Minister aware that excessive amounts of overtime are being worked by prison officers? What plans does he have to increase numbers so that workshops can be reopened and prisoners got out of their cells, in which they are locked for far too long?

Mr. Hurd: I have just answered that question. Part of the increases that have been decided on are needed to man new or refurbished accommodation and part to deal with the kind of problem that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

Following is the information:

Prison Service, England and Wales


New and Refurbished Accommodation 1984–88


Prison
Number of prison officers


1984–85


Channings Wood
20


Erlestoke
10


Highpoint
40


Holloway
30


Wayland
165


1985–86


Stocken
120


Brixton
5


Appleton Thorn
100


Castington
30


Medomsley
5


Leyhill
5


Deerbolt
10


1986–87


Feltham
210


Hollesley Bay Colony
5


Full Sutton
310


1987–88


The Mount (Bovington)
165

Air Weapons

Mr. Chapman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will report progress on initiatives to discourage the misuse of air weapons.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): Consideration of any further initiatives must wait until we have a clearer indication of the success of the recent campaign. In the meantime, all the publicity material produced for the campaign, including the leaflet and television filler films, will continue to be available. Other local initiatives are a matter for chief officers of police.

Mr. Chapman: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that information. Bearing in mind the strong evidence that the number of cases of the misuse of air weapons escalates during school holiday times, will he give sympathetic consideration to an immediate national media campaign to warn parents of their responsibilities in respect of the use by their children of these weapons?

Mr. Waddington: My hon. Friend does the country a service by keeping the matter of the misuse of air weapons in the public eye. We have not yet had the statistics of offences involving the misuse of air weapons since the time of the publicity campaign. It is probably better to wait until they are evaluated before deciding on what should be the next step.

Mr. Eastham: It is estimated that there are 4 million airguns, shotguns, rifles and pistols in circulation in Britain today. Is it not about time that we took more positive action to deal with the matter? Is the hon. And

learned Gentleman aware that it is estimated that the damage from airguns alone is costing the country between £3 million and £4 million a year?

Mr. Waddington: The hon. Gentleman knows well that there are laws controlling the use of weapons of all sorts. Indeed, the number of laws is legion. The question is whether to produce new laws and thereby involve the police in the expenditure of more time on the enforcement of those new laws would be the best use of police resources.

Sir John Farr: Is my hon. and learned Friend about to prepare an analysis of the results of the last Home Office campaign? Will he put the results in the Library? Will he turn his mind to the question of whether enough money was spent on the campaign, which was run on a limited budget?

Mr. Waddington: I do not think that my hon. Friend would expect me to give a full answer to that quesion now. I have said already that the next step must be to look at the statistics on offences involving firearms since the time of the campaign. We can then decide where we shall go next.

Mr. Wrigglesworth: In view of the overwhelming evidence that the abuses and damage caused by these guns take place among young people, does not the hon. and learned Gentleman think that the time has come, despite the publicity campaign, to change the law to restrict the access of young people to those guns and to make it clear to the country that the guns are not overgrown toys but dangerous weapons?

Mr. Waddington: The hon. Gentleman is right to make that last point. One must not lose sight of the fact that there are already considerable restrictions on the purchase and hire of such weapons—for instance, they cannot be purchased or hired by people between the ages of 14 and 17. I must repeat the point that I originally made and emphasise that, happily, in 1981 and 1982 there was a fall in the number of crimes involving the use of air weapons.

Mr. Stuart Holland: The Minister must be aware that it is considerably easier to purchase shotguns than other kinds of firearms. The hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to imposing more difficulties on the police. Is he aware that, for example, the Lambeth police community liaison committee has made representations to him about the issue of shotguns? Will he respond to those representations?

Mr. Waddington: When one is considering imposing more controls on shotguns, one must remember that a determined criminal will try to evade any level of control. That is clear from the fact that hand guns are used frequently in the commission of crime, although there are very stringent controls on their possession and use.

Prison Overcrowding

Mr. Charles Wardle: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how he intends to reduce prison overcrowding; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Brittan: I have accelerated the major building programme initiated by my predecessor. By 1991 this will provide 6,600 places in new prisons and a further 4,000


as a result of redevelopment in existing prisons. I have reduced the minimum qualifying period for parole from 12 months to six months and I am pressing ahead with measures designed to reduce the number of drunkenness offenders, other fine defaulters and mentally disordered offenders in prison.

Mr. Wardle: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for reaffirming his long-term strategy. Does he agree that some prisons, such as Northeye in my constituency, which was designed to hold 250 category C prisoners and now takes 400 prisoners of all types, are not only overcrowded but seriously understaffed? Is he aware that the governor of Northeye, the board of visitors and the Prison Officers' Association are anxious to have adequate staffing ratios in the interests of local communities as well as prison employees?

Mr. Brittan: There is no doubt that a number of prisons experience the difficulties to which my hon. Friend refers. The only way to deal with those difficulties is to embark upon the building and refurbishing programme that I have described and to provide the necessary staff, which, as the House has already heard this afternoon, is being done.

Mrs. Renée Short: Does the Home Secretary agree that the rehabilitation of offenders is impossible in the grossly overcrowded and disgusting conditions that obtain in all our male prisons today and have obtained for some decades? What are the right hon. and learned Gentleman's proposals for alternative methods of treatment, without waiting for new prisons to be built?

Mr. Brittan: New prisons are being built. The Government have addressed themselves to the problem mentioned by the hon. Lady, rather than merely paying lip-service to it. I have repeatedly stressed every time that I have an opportunity to do so the importance of alternatives to custody. In addition, recently I issued the Green Paper on intermittent custody, more popularly known as weekend or day imprisonment. I am glad that, although it has met some criticism, the Magistrates' Association, for example, has followed the distinguished lead of the all-party penal affairs group in welcoming proposals of this kind.

Mr. Leigh: Will the control review committee's report on difficult prisoners make any difference to my right hon. and learned Friend's decision?

Mr. Brittan: Yes, I regard the report of that committee as an extremely important document. I am glad to have had the opportunity to welcome it and to set some of its proposals in action. By enabling better control of the small number of difficult and disruptive prisoners in the prison system, the life of prisoners and staff will be greatly ameliorated.

Mr. Soley: Does the Home Secretary accept that, if some of the recommendations of the Hodgson committee were accepted, they would significantly reduce the prison population by allowing the courts to confiscate the proceeds of crime and thereby impose shorter sentences across the board?

Mr. Brittan: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, during the course of this Parliament I intend to introduce legislation to deal with the confiscation of the proceeds of

crime The Hodgson committee report will be studied carefully to decide the form that such legislation should take.

Mr. Alexander: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a more effective and supportive after-care system would result in fewer prisoners going to prison? Has he any plans to improve or change the after-care system?

Mr. Brittan: The financial and staffing support that the Government are giving to the probation service is an earnest of our interest in what my hon. Friend has mentioned.

Mr. Dubs: Does the Home Secretary agree that, despite his various proposals for prison building and changes in parole, he still expects the prison population to increase substantially over the next few years? What does he think the prison population will be in 1990?

Mr. Brittan: Forty-seven thousand.

Mr. Meadowcroft: Will the Home Secretary tell his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment that, unless he relents on rate-capping, local authorities will have no resources and many of the alternatives to custody projects will be thwarted by lack of resources in the community?

Mr. Brittan: The Government's proposals that affect local government are designed to accommodate the Government's proposals as they affect the affairs of the Home Office.

Channel Islands

.Mr. Foulkes: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he now expects to visit the Channels Islands.

Mr. Brittan: I am planning to visit the Channel islands in the early autumn.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Foulkes: I wish the Home Secretary well on his visit. However, is he aware that, when he arrives, he will find that he has stirred up a hornets' nest by, quite rightly, asking the Channel Islands to contribute to the foreign affairs and defence costs of the United Kingdom? While I welcome that, as I am sure many hon. Members would welcome it, in view of the anxiety expressed in the House at the way in which those islands encourage tax dodging, and as we are defending Guernsey in the European Court of Human Rights on a strange decision that it made, would it not be better for the Home Secretary to institute an investigation into the constitutional relationship between those islands and the United Kingdom?

Mr. Brittan: I see no need for any such investigation. The request that I made for the islands to consider contributing to the United Kingdom costs, not just in respect of defence but in respect of international representation on their behalf, has nothing to do with the other matters that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If what I have done is the work of a hornet, my imagination does not allow me to describe the insect that would be an appropriate description of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Durant: Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept from me that he will receive a nice welcome in the


Channel Islands? Will he take no notice of the views of the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) about taxation? The islands are an independent nation in respect of their own taxes. They are allowed to run their own tax system and they should be allowed to continue doing so.

Mr. Brittan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his reassurance. I assure the House that I much look forward to my visit and am heartened by the round of cheers that the announcement evoked.

Drug Addiction, Hampshire

Sir David Price: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has as to the changes in the level of drug addiction in Hampshire over recent years, and, in particular, whether there has been an increase in the use of heroin.

Mr. Mellor: As in many other parts of the country, it appears that there has been an increase in the level of drug addiction in Hampshire and that heroin is now more readily available than hitherto.

Sir David Price: Is my hon. Friend aware that the situation is much worse than appears from the official figures that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) yesterday? Is he prepared to initiate joint action by Government Departments and local authorities on a matter which falls between various spheres of authority and clearly needs to be master-minded by someone?

Mr. Mellor: I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. We acknowledge that the figures for registered addicts underestimate the number of people addicted to opiates to the extent that they should probably be multiplied by five to give an accurate idea of the situation. In exactly the spirit of my hon. Friend's question, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is setting up an inter-departmental working group of Ministers, to be chaired by me. We intend to develop Government policy especially on the crucial aspect of co-ordinating the various agencies which must work together if the problem is ever to be defeated.

Dr. M. S. Miller: Is there not an element of complacency in the Minister's remarks, in view of the enormous increase in addiction to hard drugs in the past 10 to 15 years? Do the Government intend to wait until we reach the situation that obtains in some parts of the United States before action is taken to hammer the problem so that the youth of this country can be protected?

Mr. Mellor: I do not believe that there is any complacency. If there were, I should greatly regret it, because the last thing that we feel about this problem is complacent. Since the Government took office we have taken a range of initiatives which have led to a dramatic increase in the seizure of heroin. The Misuse of Drugs Act has been amended to control barbiturates, under the schedule. The aim of the working group is to develop our policies. We are in no sense complacent about what we have achieved so far. We wish to build on those achievements, recognising that we are dealing with a serious and deteriorating situation.

Mr. John Browne: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should provide more resources for rehabilitation and consider much harsher sentences for drug trafficking? Will he also investigate accessibility to drugs, including the misuse and abuse of doctors' prescriptions, with a view to tightening controls on the lines of the apparently good control of ammunition and firearms certificates?

Mr. Mellor: We are taking action on all those matters. There are powers to send drug offenders to prison for a very long time and we propose to take action to allow the courts to deprive traffickers of the proceeds of their crime. On the prohibition of drugs, as I said earlier, barbiturates are now controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act and we shall continue to take action along similar lines if drugs now freely available become subject to abuse. Firm action will be taken against doctors issuing prescriptions negligently or for ill motives, including prohibiting them from practising while disciplinary proceedings are taking place, if that seems appropriate. I am sure that all those measures will be welcomed by both sides of the House.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: What faith can we have in he Government's determination to reduce the flow of heroin into Hampshire and other parts of the country when they have reduced the number of uniformed customs staff by 900 and when the Home Secretary makes a well-publicised announcement in December that he will be sending one full-time customs officer to Pakistan but does not send him there until 13 April and brings him back on 15 May?

Mr. Mellor: As ever, the hon. Gentleman trivialises the situation. Since the Government took office the number of specialist customs investigators dealing with heroin has doubled. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will keep quiet, I will give him the answer that he needs. As a consequence, 38 kg of heroin was seized in 1980, 212 kg in 1983 and 193 kg so far this year, including 100 kg in May and June alone. That is a measure of our success, although it also reflects the increase in the amount of heroin coming into the country. That is why we propose further measures. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that simply increasing the number of customs officers in the green channel will help when 40 million people pass through London's airports every year, that is certainly wishful thinking.

Independent Prosecution Service

Mr. Watson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to receive the report from the management consultants who have been investigating the cost benefits of the proposed independent prosecution service.

Mr. Mellor: The consultants' report is expected early next year. I should make it clear that they are investigating, not the cost benefits of the independent prosecution service, but what structure and working practices it will be most efficient and cost-effective io adopt.

Mr. Watson: Is my hon. Friend aware that a large number of county prosecuting solicitors feel that they can offer a full and cost-effective service within their existing local responsibilities? Will he therefore do his best to


ensure that, under the new national system that he has announced, as great a degree as possible of local control and autonomy will be retained?

Mr. Mellor: I take my hon. Friend's point. Our intention is not merely to retain the local autonomy which already exists, but to enhance it. We want more decisions to be taken locally.

Mr. Hirst: In considering the future of the independent prosecuting service in England and Wales, will my hon. Friend take as an example the independent prosecuting system in Scotland that system has existed for many years and commands widespread public support and confidence, not least because it removes the invidious situation in which the police have to lead in prosecutions?

Mr. Mellor: As ever, my hon. Friend pats his country of origin on the back. On this occasion, I cannot deny the truth of what he says.

Mr. Ryman: The establishment of the independent prosecution service is to be welcomed, but how much will it cost? If it is to be done properly, huge sums of money will be involved. How do the Government reconcile that fact with their present policy of cutting public expenditure in every sphere?

Mr. Mellor: We are introducing the new system because we accepted the Royal Commission's view that an independent prosecution service is a crucial safeguard of the integrity of the criminal justice system. We brought in the management consultants to ensure that there is no waste. We believe that liberating police officers currently engaged in full-time prosecutions will be beneficial, and we do not believe that the additional cost of the service will in any sense be burdensome.

Television Licences (Sheltered Housing)

Mr. David Atkinson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many representations he has received about charges for television licences in private sheltered housing.

Mr. Hurd: We have received rather more than 100 representations from hon. Members, and about 40 from members of the public, about concessionary television licences for retired people in privately managed sheltered housing schemes.

Mr. Atkinson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is an inconsistency, and indeed an injustice, here? In the case of private sheltered housing for the elderly a licence fee is charged for every television set, but a concession has recently been granted to private hotels with up to 15 sets to allow them to pay only one licence fee. Will my right hon. Friend now consider granting the same concession to private sheltered housing for the elderly?

Mr. Hurd: Under the new arrangements that we propose, hotels which are now in practice paying for only one set will, above the threshold of 15, pay for one set in five. I hope that—in Bournemouth as elsewhere—that arrangement will be seen to be fairer. We are, at the same time, extending the concession to disabled people in sheltered accommodation and to certain types of housing association housing not now covered.

Mr. Allen McKay: Why does not the Minister grasp the nettle and abolish television licensing altogether for old-age pensioners, with a view to phasing out licences for everybody?

Mr. Hurd: If we introduced the scheme which the hon. Gentleman suggested in his first breath, the colour television fee for other licence holders would rise to £70 for that reason alone.

Mr. Chope: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that the introduction of advertising would ensure that the BBC would not have to raise the licence fee and that the cost of living of virtually every family in the country would be reduced by £1 a week?

Mr. Hurd: That is a wider question, which no doubt we will have other opportunities to discuss.

Mr. Winnick: We certainly do not want advertising on BBC television or radio. Why can the Government give tax concessions to the richest people in the community—as they have done in four of five Budgets—and yet deny to many people, including the elderly who live on their own, the natural justice of not having to pay the full television licence fee?

Mr. Hurd: A free licence for all pensioners, such as the hon. Gentleman has consistently argued for, would reduce licence revenue by about £250 million a year—one third of the total. His argument would be more complete if he told us how that money was to be found.

Coal Industry Dispute

Mr. Yeo: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers have suffered serious injury while on duty in connection with the miners' strike since he last answered oral questions.

Mr. Brittan: Of 100 police officers injured between 20 June and 17 July, four of the injuries are recorded as being serious.

Mr. Yeo: Will my right hon. and learned Friend join me in paying tribute to the courage and commitment of police officers who are serving on special duties in connection with the miners' strike? Does he share the growing sense of public outrage that police officers, whose real work should be the prevention and detection of crime, are being put in the front line and receiving violence from politically motivated pickets who are in the pay of Mr. Arthur Scargill?

Mr. Brittan: I welcome the opportunity to reaffirm my highest regard for the work that the police are doing in this respect. I also welcome the opportunity to repeat that we do not want this to go on for one moment longer than is necessary and that we deeply regret that persistent and organised violence by those who are running the strike has necessitated such a police presence and response.

Mr. Hardy: Although I regret any injury to police officers and hope that no further injuries will be experienced, does the Home Secretary agree that other people who are involved in the miners' strike have suffered injury or have had unsatisfactory experiences in circumstances that arouse deep concern? In view of that and the need to ensure that relations between the police and the public in the coalfields are satisfactory once again in


the future, does he agree that there should be an independent and impartial inquiry into law and order in the dispute?

Mr. Brittan: I do not accept that. I should accept without hesitation that, if the number of pickets of each place of work were reduced to the six that the National Union of Mineworkers recommended, policemen would not have been injured and nor would anyone else.

Mr. Favell: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, of the four pits in the Bolsover constituency, three are now working, thanks to excellent policing? Is he able to assure miners at the fourth—the Whitwell colliery—that they will benefit similarly if they wish to return to work?

Mr. Brittan: The job of the police is to ensure that anyone who wants to work is able to do so and is not prevented from working by bullying or violence. They will continue to do that job everywhere.

Mr. Barron: Will the Home Secretary be a little more specific? How many police officers were injured at the Orgreave coking plant in my constituency on 18 June? How many miners were injured when they were brutally attacked by some of those police officers?

Mr. Brittan: I do not have information about miners' injuries, as they are under no obligation to report them to me or anyone else. As to the hon. Gentleman's implied allegation about police conduct, he is entitled to make a complaint under section 49 of the Police Act 1976. No doubt he will do so, in which event it will be considered properly.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the disturbing facts is that although a great many people have been charged with offences arising out of the miners' dispute, including offences involving violence, very few cases have been decided by the courts? Does he agree that justice must be seen to be done, and that it must be seen to be done as soon as possible and not several months after the event?

Mr. Brittan: I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that it is desirable that cases be brought to court as soon as possible. Delays in bringing people who are charged with criminal offences to trial are always a matter of concern. My right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor and I are ready to consider what assistance or advice might be given to any court that finds it has an exceptionally heavy load of cases. I know that my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is prepared to meet requests from the courts for the assistance of stipendiary magistrates.

Mr. Kaufman: the Opposition greatly regret and sympathise with the police who have been injured on the picket line, just as we sympathise with all others who have been injured there, including relatives of the two miners who have died on the picket line. In view of the many allegations about police action on the picket line that are coming forward, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware, first, that a public inquiry into what is taking place on the picket lines and into police activity is now essential? Secondly, is he aware that the best way of bringing these incidents to an end is for the strike, which has been deliberately provoked by the Government, to be settled by the Prime Minister?

Mr. Brittan: As the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that complaints made against the police have not yet been determined, I cannot see how he can possibly say that there is a case for a public inquiry without knowing the results of the ordinary constabulary procedure.
In relation to the right hon. Gentleman's more general allegation, he might like to consider the point that I put to his hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy). Does he not agree that if the original NUM guidelines for six pickets at any workplace were adhered to, there would be no police, no injuries arid no complaints?

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Nellist: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 19 July.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Nellist: Is it not a fact that the Tory Government, having prepared for and provoked the miners' strike in the hope of starving the miners back to work and demoralising other sections of workers, have utterly failed in that intention due to the determination of the miners and their families, and to the support of other working people? Is not the Prime Minister, in her provocative action, heading rapidly towards a general strike, but one different from the general strike that was provoked by her predecessor Mr. Stanley Baldwin in 1926, in that the Labour movement is a hundred times stronger today? Therefore, is not the Prime Minister heading, not for an industrial Falklands but, like a Napoleon, for a political Waterloo?

The Prime Minister: No, this strike is not of the Government's making. No Government have done more for the mining industry. No Government have ever had such good plans for the future of coal than this one, whether in terms of pay, investment or compensation for voluntary redundancies. That is well known in the industry. With regard to the breakdown of the talks, at the end of last night's talks the only point at issue was the entirely unreasonable demand by the NUM that pits should stay open, regardless of whether they are beneficial to the industry. The NUM leaders must know as well as anybody that no industry can operate on such a basis. No Government could ever accept such a blank cheque upon the taxpayer.

Sir John Wells: Will my right hon. Friend find time to consider today, against the background of the dock dispute, the vital necessity to maintain a healthy horticulture industry, particularly in perishable fresh food production in this country?

The Prime Minister: I can understand my hon. Friend's concern for those who are trying to get perishable produce from one side of the Channel to the other, who have been the first to suffer as a result of the dispute. It is ironic that those driving such produce on to the ships across the Channel are members of the same union as the one that called the strike.

Mr. Simon Hughes: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 19 July.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Hughes: As it has become known that the Prime Minister will tell her Back Benchers tonight that there will be no change in the style and direction of her Government—[Interruption.]—will she tell the House what changes there will be in the overwhelming mandate that she claims for her local government policies when the Tory candidates fight the four GLC by-elections on 20 September?

The Prime Minister: I really thought that we had done rather well in our style, in winning two general elections and two Euro-elections. With regard to artificial stunts over GLC by-elections, we shall have nothing to do with such gimmicks at the ratepayers' expense.

Mr. Andy Stewart: Is my right hon. Friend surprised that the Opposition have shown no enthusiasm for Mr. Justice Megarry's decision yesterday in favour of the Nottinghamshire miners, in comparison to their mega-enthusiasm on Monday for Mr. Justice Glidewell's decision?

The Prime Minister: As I said very firmly on Tuesday, everyone must be subject to the rule of law, otherwise the rule of law is at an end. I hope that everyone will accept that, as I most certainly shall.

Mr. John Morris: The Prime Minister will recall that on Tuesday she asked an hon. Member to withdraw. Will she use some of her valuable time today to reflect on an answer that she gave to the effect that a decision of Mr. Sam Silkin, a former Attorney-General—no longer in the House—was invalid, when she quoted the words of the Master of the Rolls? Was not that particular decision of the Court of Appeal reversed by the House of Lords and the propriety of Mr. Silkin upheld, particularly by Lord Dilhorne, a former Attorney-General? In the words of Lord Edmund-Davies, any observation by the Court of Appeal questioning the conduct of Mr. Silkin was to be deplored. In those circumstances, will the right hon. Lady unreservedly withdraw any suggestion of impropriety by Mr. Silkin and any suggestion of invalidity over his action?

The Prime Minister: Most certainly I shall withdraw. I note that Mr. Sam Silkin was wise enough to use the facilities of the law, and to the highest authority.

Mr. Roger King: In her busy day, has my right hon. Friend received a delegation from Opposition Members, a telephone call, a letter or a kissogram, congratulating her Government on the provision of an extra 250,000 new jobs as a result of her policies?

The Prime Minister: I think that my hon. Friend is referring to figures given yesterday illustrating that there were about 260,000 new jobs last year and, I believe, also some 330,000 new jobs in the service sector. It is indeed good news, but the reason why unemployment is not falling faster is that the number of people of working age is rising faster than the number of new jobs.

Mr. Pike: asked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 19 July.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Pike: Does the Prime Minister accept that she still has no positive policies to deal with the real problem facing this country and that as a result of the Government's policy, the miners are out, the dockers are out, 3 million people are out of work and the Government were caught out over GCHQ? Unless the right hon. Lady has some real policies to offer, does she not think that the best answer would be "Maggie Out"? Would that not be welcomed throughout the country?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The miners are not out because of Government policies. They have a very good pay offer, excellent investment and compensation that are better than that offered under any previous Government. The miners have been called out—I believe that some of them do not know why, and I believe that many of them would thoroughly like to go back. It is strikes that destroy jobs. Opposition Members support strikes, so it is they who are destroying jobs.

Mr. Crouch: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the worst developments in war occurs when each side digs in and trench warfare results? Does she not think that the time comes when the matter has to be taken out of the hands of the generals by the statesmen? Does not she feel that that is the time when a peace treaty can be drawn up which offers justice for the present and hope and prosperity for the future? Does she not feel that the present conflict in the coalfields——

Mr. Speaker: Briefly.

The Prime Minister: No, Mr. Speaker. There have been seven days of talks, which included some 35 hours of discussion. The talks are stuck on one issue. That is the question whether the pits should stay open regardless of whether they are beneficial to the industry. One simply cannot have all pits staying open regardless of whether they are beneficial. It is not fair to Britain. It is not fair to the people who purchase coal. It is not fair to those who rely on reasonable energy costs. In the end the strike will have to be solved by management and work force. I do not think that any person intervening will help that process.

Mr. Kinnock: Will the Prime Minister recognise that she is totally misrepresenting the position of the talks, the NUM, and the response of the NCB when she makes the claim that no will accept pit closures in any circumstances? The cost of the strike is now nearly £2,000 million. When will she intervene to help a settlement instead of interfering to hinder a settlement?

The Prime Minister: I understand that it is agreed that pits should close if they are exhausted, that they should close because of geological faults, and that they should close for a third reason. It is over that third reason that the talks have broken down. The NCB has said that pits should not be mined unless they are workable and can be mined beneficially. That is not very different from the tripartite report on "Plan for Coal" which was signed by Eric Varley, the noble Lord Gormley and the noble Lord Ezra, which said:
Inevitably some pits will have to close as their useful economic reserves of coal are depleted.
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that?

Hon Members: Answer the question.

Mr. Kinnock: Does the right hon. Lady not understand that all the arithmetic offered back in March and the arithmetic on which she is now working is redundant? Is


she aware that the chairman of the NCB understands, as he said yesterday, that there are changed circumstances, and that as late as 11 o'clock last night the NUM asked that the talks be adjourned and resumed this morning, but that was refused? There are people working for a settlement. Why will she not use her power to create conditions in which a settlement is possible?

The Prime Minister: Because, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the talks have broken on one point—the closure of uneconomic pits. I notice that the right hon. Gentleman now wants further talks, if further talks would resolve that one point. But does the right hon. Gentleman accept the tripartite report on "Plan for Coal" which said:
Inevitably some pits will have to close as their useful economic reserves of coal are depleted"?
If so he accepts the closure of uneconomic pits. If so, why was he reported as saying on Saturday that there is no alternative but to fight—all other roads are shut off?

Mr. Kinnock: I understand the need for talks. In fact, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) has been working for seven weeks to get talks going, against the will of the Prime Minister and in spite of the Government. We understand the need for talks and the need for a settlement. I am going to ask the Prime Minister again not to dodge the question and evade her responsibility—[Interruption.]—but to ensure that she provides the conditions which she has refused to do, in which a settlement on "Plan for Coal", for which we have been asking for 20 weeks, can actually be resolved. Will she understand? Will she work? Will she talk? Will she negotiate? Will she do anything but carry on the destruction that is still her only stock in trade.

The Prime Minister: I understand the right hon. Gentleman only too well. That is his trouble. Will he say whether he accepts—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House heard the question from the Leader of the Opposition. The Prime Minister is seeking to reply to it.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman referred to "Plan for Coal". I have it here. Will he refer to the tripartite report on "Plan for Coal" signed by Mr. Varley, Lord Gormley and Lord Ezra, which said:
Inevitably, some pits will have to close as their useful economic reserves of coal are depleted"?
Is the right hon. Gentleman's policy the same as, or different from, that of the last Labour Government'?

Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I believe this to be Prime Minister's Question Time. Now that she sees where real influence lies and where responsibility is accepted, she is turning this into—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must hear the point of order. I cannot hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying.

Mr. Golding: Can you rule, Mr. Speaker, that this is Prime Minister's Question Time and that the Prime Minister is not entitled to turn it into an evasive Question Time in which she tries to question the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister answers questions. [HON. MEMBERS: " She does not."] Order. The Prime Minister answers questions that have been put to her. That is the plain fact of the matter.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Question Time is not only about asking questions. It is also about hearing the answers to them. May I ask that at Prime Minister's Question Time, you preserve the right of the House to hear the Prime Minister's replies?

Mr. Speaker: It is getting towards the end of July, but I seek to do that.

Mr. Heifer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is not only a question of hearing the answers. We should also like to hear the questions.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that we need persist with this. I am well aware that Prime Minister's Question Time is rowdier these days than it has been in the past. It is difficult for the Chair to control that. I must leave it to the good sense of the whole House to conduct our proceedings with decorum.

Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr, Speaker. You will recall that on Tuesday the Prime Minister referred to the Cheltenham affair and said:
As the Government will be lodging an appeal later today it would be inappropriate for me to make any further comment "—[Official Report, 17 July 1984; Vol. 64, c 171.]
I understand that on Independent Television news today the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) referred to the Cheltenham affair as a "hiccup" and went on to say——

Mr. Speaker: I must stop the hon. Member. What goes on on television is not a matter for me.

Mr. Allan Roberts: If it is contempt of the House, it is.

Mr. Speaker: What goes on on television is not a matter for me. The hon. Member knows that I am responsible for what goes on in this House, not for what goes on outside it.

Mr. Madden: I appreciate that, but I think that it is important for you, Mr. Speaker, to hear what the right hon. Member said.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not a matter for me and I am not interested in it.

Mr. Eadie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have already expressed your anxiety about Prime Minister's questions. Will you do something about the trend that Prime Minister's questions are taking, through your powers as Mr. Speaker? Nowadays the Prime Minister tries to show the House that she has the ability to read, and today we had an example of that. The right hon. Lady was guilty of gilding the lily in her description of the "Plan for Coal". Therefore, will you have words with the powers that be about the Prime Minister's attitude at Question Time?

Mr. Speaker: I cannot be held responsible for anybody's attitudes. I notice that there are no fewer than 104 questions to the Prime Minister, all of which are open questions. The matter is in the hands of the House. If the House wishes to put down definitive questions to the Prime Minister, hon. Members may do so. I have no control over the fact that all of today's questions are open questions.

Mr. James Callaghan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the Prime Minister now seems to be


asking the questions, I wonder whether it would solve the problem if she and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition changed places?

Mr. Madden: rose——

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member seeks to raise a matter of privilege, he should write to me in the usual way.

Mr. Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would appreciate your guidance about matters that would clearly be a breach of privilege if said by an hon. Member in the House, but which, according to your recently expressed view, are not a breach of privilege if said outside the House. We seek your guidance as to what the rules of sub judice are when a distinguished and senior parliamentarian, anticipating a decision, said — [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a busy day before us and, as I said earlier, if the hon. Member seeks to raise this as a matter of privilege, he should do so in the normal way and write to me.

Sir John Wells: Further to your ruling about the open question, Mr. Speaker, would it be more convenient if you took powers to call first those questions to the Prime Minister that were more specific?

Mr. Speaker: That would have been impossible today.

Mr. Pavitt: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before we had the open question system every other question was transferred to the Department involved. Is it possible to table questions that are not open questions?

Mr. Speaker: That has always been possible, and a few years ago that was frequently done. It would be much more profitable for the House if definitive questions were put down to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Harry Ewing: Yesterday I raised a point of order about the failure of the Scottish Office to advise hon. Members when questions were being linked. It would be wrong of me not to place on record today my appreciation of the profound apology that I received from the Scottish Office this morning.

Mr. Ashton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have just ruled that the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) can say things outside the House that he cannot say inside the House——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I repeat that, if any hon. Member alleges a breach of privilege, he should write to me in the usual way.

Business of the House

Mr. Neil Kinnock: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): The business until the summer Adjournment will be as follows:
MONDAY 23 JULY — Consideration of Lords amendments to the Health and Social Security Bill.
Motion on the British Steel Corporation (Borrowing Powers) Order.
Motion relating to the Education (Assisted Places) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations.
TUESDAY 24 JULY — Consideration of Lords amendments to the Trade Union Bill.
WEDNESDAY 25 JULY — Proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill.
At seven o'clock the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
THURSDAY 26 JULY — Motion for the summer Adjournment.
Consideration of any Lords amendments which may be received to the Housing Defects Bill.
FRIDAY 27 JULY — Motion on the Caribbean Development Bank (Further Payments) Order.
MONDAY 30 JULY — Consideration of any Lords amendments which may be received to the Local Government (Interim Provisions) Bill.
TUESDAY 31 JULY — Opposition Day (19th Allotted Day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion termed "The Shambles of the Government's Economic, Employment and Industrial Policies." [HON. MEMBERS: "Say it again!"] It would sound no sweeter the second time round.
WEDNESDAY I AUGUST—It will be proposed that the House should meet at 9.30 am, take questions until 10.30 am and adjourn at 3.30 pm until Monday 22 October.

Mr. Kinnock: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for telling us the business for next week and until 1 August. Does he know that the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, promised a full debate in the House on the new regional policy before the House rose for the summer recess? If it is impossible to squeeze in such a debate before then, what is the earliest date on which we can have that promised debate?
In view of yesterday's interest rate movements in the London money markets, can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that if there are further unfortunate increases in lending rates during the next week or so he will ensure that a statement is made to the House? Will he also ensure that a statement is made to the House before the summer recess about the talks with the Argentine Government in Switzerland?
Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the Prime Minister is here on 31 July to answer the Opposition motion?

Mr. Biffen: On the final point, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister needs no challenges from the right hon. Gentleman.
I realise that the House is greatly interested in the Argentine talks, and I shall be in touch with my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to see how best the House may be informed of their progress.
I realise the anxiety about a possible movement in interest rates and take note of the right hon. Gentleman's concern. I have no doubt that that issue could be included within the ambit of the debate planned for Tuesday 31 July.
As to when we can provide a debate on regional policy, perhaps we might pursue that through the usual channels.

Mr. Michael Fallon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that industrial Teesside is coming to a halt? May we have a debate on the extent to which striking dockers and miners are becoming the mothers and fathers of unemployment in my constituency and other constituencies?

Mr. Biffen: I take my hon. Friend's point. That is a contribution that could help to inject some profound common sense into the debate that is to arise on the Opposition Day on 31 July.

Mr. A. J. Beith: Is it not an exceedingly powerful weapon in the hands of Government that they can free themselves from parliamentary questioning for up to three months, even if the economic or industrial situation worsens drastically in that time? Will the Leader of the House receive favourably requests for a recall of the House if they come from a substantial number of hon. Members from any party to prevent any possible serious worsening of the industrial or economic situation?

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw the attention of the House to the fact that there is a Standing Order that provides that Mr. Speaker can recall the House in circumstances such as those to which he refers.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: In view of the decision of the Common Market Assembly to set up a committee to consider the desirability of bringing in legislation to oblige drivers in Britain and the Republic of Ireland to drive on the right, will my right hon. Friend arrange for the Government to make a statement on their policy on this and say whether such legislation could be imposed by majority vote and whether the veto will apply?

Mr. Biffen: There are more ways of killing that cat than my hon. Friend has suggested, but I shall draw his point to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

Mr. Dave Nellist: Before the Government decide to use their troops against the miners and the dockers, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange before the Adjournment for the summer recess for the Home Secretary to explain to the House the deterioration in the standard of police activities against miners, the new curfew arrangements now being imposed against young miners in places such as Fitzwilliam and west Yorkshire, and the nearly 5,000 arrests that have taken place during this dispute? After the summer Adjournment date, the Government have at least three months to do what they wish to do without scrutiny or questions in Parliament.

Mr. Biffen: In a fraternal way, I recommend to the hon. Gentleman the proceedings on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill on 25 July.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Without implying any criticism of my right hon. Friend, because it has been the habit for more years than I can remember, may I put this to him? When he announces public business


for the coming week, he says what it is, but when it is opposed private business he does not tell the House what it is. We would have a better attendance on the important occasions when we discuss private business if on Thursday my right hon. Friend told the House what the opposed private business was. I should be most grateful if my right hon. Friend would be good enough to consider that point, which I do not think has been raised before.

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend speaks with such seeming common sense that I know that there must be powerful arguments against his suggestion. I shall look at the matter and see whether I can help.

Mr. Brian Sedgemore: Is it not time that we had an opportunity to debate the mounting evidence of bribery, corruption and terror in Oman, and the respective roles of the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and defence chiefs?

Mr. Biffen: The joy of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill debate is that it is a menu of many courses. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman tries to serve one.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: Is the debate on 31 July on the economy a substitute for the debate that the newspapers tell us the Opposition have promised on the coal and docks disputes? If it is, may I give notice to my right hon. Friend and to you, Mr. Speaker, that I intend to challenge the Leader of the Opposition to say not only that he condemns violence but that he has asked intimidating——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question must be addressed to the Leader of the House and not to the Leader of the Opposition or to me.

Mr. Bottomley: Does my right hon. Friend accept, in the terms of that debate, that those who claim to represent the Transport and General Workers Union should speak in that debate as though they represent all of their members and not just their favourite sons?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend shows what a lively occasion that debate will be. Therefore, I hope that every member of the Opposition Front Bench will be there and that none will be deflected by premature holidays.

Mr. Allan Roberts: Has the Leader of the House seen the report in The Guardian and other newspapers today to the effect that the proposals outlined in yesterday's statement by the Secretary of State for the Environment to interfere with local authority capital expenditure may be illegal? Given this Government's record for breaking the law, will he undertake that during the recess those proposals will not be amended and that a moratorium on capital expenditure will not be introduced without the House being recalled or until there is a statement after the recess?

Mr. Biffen: I confess that I have not yet got round to reading The Guardian today, but I shall immediately convey the anxieties expressed by the hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, who can then take them into account.

Mr. John Stokes: As the coal strike is likely to continue for some considerable time,

will my right hon. Friend ask my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to consider making a ministerial broadcast next week so that the nation may fully understand all the issues involved?

Mr. Biffen: I shall most certainly convey that suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Mr. Don Dixon: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to early-day motion 867, on national maritime policy?
[That this House, concerned at the loss of 30,000 British seafarers' jobs since 1979 and also the loss of over 30,000 jobs in the shipbuilding, ship repair and marine engineering industry, and recalling that nearly 100 per cent. of the United Kingdom's exports and imports are carried in ships and because shipping, shipbuilding, ship repair and the marine engineering industry still employs nearly 290,000 people, believes that, as an island country, the United Kingdom must retain a ship owning, shipbuilding, ship repair and marine engineering capability, and that that industry must have political and financial support during the current world recession; and therefore calls upon Her Majesty's Government urgently to establish a Cabinet Committee and appoint a Minister of Shipping to oversee and co-ordinate a national maritime policy.]
Given that the importance of shipping has been demonstrated in the past few days and that shipbuilding workers are anxious about the fact that on the instructions of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry the chairman of British Shipbuilders yesterday withheld information from the Select Committee on Trade and Industry about future plans for British Shipbuilders, may we have a debate on maritime policy before the recess?

Mr. Biffen: I acknowledge at once the importance of maritime policy, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman will consider the advantages offered by the debates on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Mr. Harry Greenway: As it is now some weeks since the report of the Farm Animal Welfare Council on the slaughter of animals was published, and as there are important implications for slaughtering policy, will my right hon. Friend arrange for an early statement to be made rather than recommend me to go for a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill? After all, this important matter concerns the country.

Mr. Biffen: I think that my colleagues are undertaking the appropriate consultations at present. But I shall, of course, draw their attention to that point.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: As there are such things as Xerox machines, is it satisfactory that the House should have had to wait until Wednesday to obtain a copy of the judgment of Mr. Justice Glidewell? Should not hon. Members have had that judgment at the time that the Prime Minister was cross-questioned? If we had had it, we would have been able to ask even more detailed questions about what prompted her, on 22 December, to give those instructions to her officials out of the blue, three days before Christmas. We could also have pressed her as to precisely what event caused her to give them.

Mr. Biffen: I shall, of course, look into any problems about the speed with which documents can be made available. I shall see what can be done to help.

Mr. Ian Lloyd: Does my right hon. Friend expect the Government to make a statement before the summer recess on the publication of the report of the Civil Aviation Authority on the reorganisation of British airlines?

Mr. Biffen: I am not in a position to answer that question, but I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to the interest shown in that report.

Mr. Donald Coleman: As a result of the drought, a very serious situation now exists in Wales, and particularly in south-east Wales. It is exacerbated by the fact that plans have not been implemented to deal with such droughts. Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for the Secretary of State for Wales to make a statement to the House next week on the desperate situation in Wales?

Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales to that request.

Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to consider the findings of the Warnock report? In view of the grave moral and ethical implications of that report, will he arrange an early debate so that the issues may be discussed?

Mr. Biffen: It so happens that I have with me Hansard of 18 July last, at columns 203–4 of which was given the most comprehensive answer to that question.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: In view of the overwhelming support in the country, and especially among disabled people's organisations, for the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Amendment) Bill, which I introduced last November, and in view of the fact that in the other place it received support through all its stages there, will the Government now restore at least a little of their honour and allow a proper Second Reading to take place and a decision to be made by this House on my Bill on 27 July? Failing that, will the right hon. Gentleman have words with his immediate superior and ask her whether any opportunity is likely to occur for my Bill before we prorogue?

Mr. Biffen: I have no proposals to provide privileged status for any private Member's Bill on 27 July.

Mr. John Watts: Will my right hon. Friend impress on the Secretary of State for Transport the urgency of having a debate on the Civil Aviation Authority report on airline competition policy in view of the threat which some of the proposals in that report pose to the livelihood of many of my constituents who work for British Airways, in particular the proposal to transfer a chunk of its business to other British airlines?

Mr. Biffen: I note — indeed, wholeheartedly acknowledge—the validity of the points that my hon. Friend makes. Although I realise that this proposition may sound a little threadbare, the Consolidated Fund Bill would give him the chance to make precisely the arguments that he wishes to adduce.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Leader of the House not think it disgraceful that no serious debate on foreign policy is planned between now and the recess? What plans does he have to ensure the correctness of the Government's position on arms sales and policy in

central America should the Americans decide to invade Nicaragua between now and the resumption of Parliament in October?

Mr. Biffen: I join the hon. Gentleman in regretting that the pressure on time and business is such that we cannot have a further debate on foreign affairs so soon after the last one, but I shall refer the points he makes to the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Tony Marlow: As I am sure that my right hon. Friend is very much in favour of effective democratic legislative control over Executive power, will he give an undertaking that we shall not again have to go through that which happened last night, when an important and sensitive measure having a major impact on the well-being and livelihood of thousands of British farmers was debated for only three hours after midnight, without the possibility of many points being put forward and without the possibility of any amendment being made; or is he prevented from giving such an undertaking by the European Communities Act?

Mr. Biffen: No, but we must recognise that the debate last night was but one of several that have taken place on this topic. It is a matter of major significance, and I appreciate that as much as anybody, given my constituency interest.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I did not speak either.

Mr. Biffen: I am sorry that my hon. Friend did not speak. His views, nevertheless, were vigorously communicated in the short and succinct fashion of that interruption.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) that there is nothing novel about the use of statutory instruments for issues of this kind. I hope that the House will not disparage the idea that, because business is transacted late at night, it is treated as being second class. Historically, many of the most important decisions have been conducted in those circumstances.

Mr. John Evans: May I bring to the attention of the Leader of the House the widespread concern and dissatisfaction about the apparent haste with which decisions on the travel-to-work areas of Great Britain are being rushed through without any real consultation with local authorities or hon. Members? Will he ensure that these changes are not made until the House has debated them if necessary, after the recess?

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman raises a serious point. I shall be in touch with my appropriate right hon. Friends to see what can be done to meet it.

Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many lives have been lost on unlit parts of Britain's motorways? A great deal of anxiety is felt throughout the country and on both sides of the House about the matter. I and the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) produced a pamphlet called "Light up the Roads", and the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd) reviewed the problem in "The House Magazine". Because fatalities on Britain's motorways at night cost £200,000 per accident, will my right hon. Friend arrange for the Secretary of State for Transport to make a statement in the House on this important subject?

Mr. Biffen: The best encouragement that I can offer my hon. Friend is to say that he should convert his pamphlet into an Adjournment debate.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Following revelations about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Robin Edgar Walsh in a prison in Oman in July 1983, will the Leader of the House arrange for a full statement to be made by a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask for a statement from the Home Secretary about why, in the case of Mr. Robin Edgar Walsh, the Home Secretary used an exemption certificate for the clearance of the remains when it is maintained that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should have followed the procedures set out in the Coroners Act 1887 which would have provided for a full investigation into Mr. Walsh's death?

Mr. Biffen: I shall, of course, take up that matter with the relevant Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

Sir Dudley Smith: When the House returns in the autumn, will my right hon. Friend use his undoubted influence with the Government Front Bench and, through the usual channels, with the Opposition Front Bench to limit Front-Bench speakers to speaking for half an hour or less in other than major debates such as on Supply Days? Is my right hon. Friend aware that last Friday the two Front-Bench speakers took up the best part of two hours in opening the debate, and therefore effectively killed it? Many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House are becoming exceedingly tired of that practice.

Mr. Biffen: I have great sympathy with what my hon. Friend said. I have no doubt that his point will be marked and will be read in Hansard.

Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: Recalling the sympathetic comment a few moments ago from the Leader of the House about the lack of a debate on foreign affairs, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the talks in Berne with the Argentines about the future of the Falkland Islands have broken down because of the refusal of British representatives to discuss sovereignty? Is it not therefore imperative that there should be a debate in the House forthwith on the future of the Falklands?

Mr. Biffen: I imagine that the hon. Gentleman heard the answer that I gave to the Leader of the Opposition on that topic. That matter is under immediate and active consideration.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will my right hon. Friend find time, if not before we rise for the summer recess then shortly afterwards, to debate the interesting Public Accounts Committee report on the investment by this country of substantial funds in the De Lorean enterprise in Northern Ireland? The report's findings were highly critical of the Government and Ministers, and I believe that it merits a full debate in the House. Will my right hon. Friend, bearing in mind my involvement in that affair, find time to enable many of us who have been done by very badly by the Government to put the truth of the case to the House and the nation?

Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend, more than any other person, is entitled to make that request. I believe that there

is a convention governing the debating of reports of the Public Accounts Committee, and within that convention I shall consider my hon. Friend's request.

Mr. Robert Parry: The Leader of the House will have seen early-day motions 547, which is supported by 59 hon. Members—
[That this House congratulates the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for calling for tripartite talks with the Governments of South Korea and the United States of America for the peaceful re-unification of Korea; and, as this is the official policy of Her Majesty's Government, calls upon the Foreign Secretary to use his influence with the American Secretary of State to help realise the aspirations of all Korean peoples for a free, independent and united Korea.]—
and 743, which is supported by 90 hon. Members—
[That this House welcomes the statement by Pope John Paul II supporting the peaceful re-unification of Korea; notes that this is the official policy of Her Majesty's Government; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to support the call for tripartite talks between North Korea, South Korea and the United States of America, for the withdrawal of the 40,000 United States troops based in the South and for the removal of all nuclear missiles which will help to realise the aspirations of all Korean peoples for a free, independent and united Korea, and for the cause of peace and détente in the Far East.]
They deal with the peaceful reunification of Korea. As reunification is the Government's official policy, will the leader of the House ask his right hon. Friends to conduct discussions with the American Secretary of State to ascertain whether we can achieve that aim?

Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly pass on that request.

Mr. Chris Smith: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Secretary of State for the Environment has said that he will be making a statement to the House before the recess on those local authorities that he intends to designate under the Rates Act? Will the Leader of the House make time for a proper and full debate on that designation list rather than have simply half an hour of questions on a statement made by the Secretary of State for the Environment?

Mr. Biffen: There is much virtue in the House rising on Wednesday 1 August, and I have established a programme which fully extends us until that date. I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands that a vigorous Question Time is one of the real advantages for the House.

Mr. Greville Janner: Will the right hon. Gentleman give time for a debate on the manner in which nuclear weapons are transported from one part of the country to another, especially the circumstances in which nuclear weapons were recently taken through Leicester during the rush hour without warning to the police and fire authorities? If the right hon. Gentleman proposes to reply that I should raise this matter during the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill, will he give some assurance that the Government will provide an answer to my questions rather than a series of refusals to answer, which I have so far received when raising this matter which is of great concern to all the citizens of Leicester?

Mr. Biffen: I am sorry, but such is the nature of this world that the hon. and learned Gentleman must take his chance on both the timing and quality of the reply.

Mr. David Winnick: If it is true that the Prime Minister decided that the recess should be earlier than originally planned so that she would have one less headache, does the Leader of the House accept that as long as the economy is in its present state, with industrial disputes in the mining industry as well as in the docks, it would be wrong for Parliament to be away for 2½ months? Will he therefore recognise that, as long as those conditions prevail, there will be much pressure for the House to be recalled?

Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman said rather less elegantly what was said by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), and I shall reply with equal charity.

Mr. Eddie Loyden: Although I accept the right hon. Gentleman's eagerness to tell us about the opportunities provided by the Consolidated Fund Bill — of course, it is not necessarily a panacea for dealing with all the frustrations that hon. Members feel when raising questions—will the right hon. Gentleman give consideration to the House debating the docks dispute before it adjourns?

Mr. Biffen: If the dispute is still in progress at the time of the Opposition Day debate, it must be central to that occasion.

Mr. Richard Holt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us are worried that British citizens remain incarcerated without charge or trial in Libya and that it is time that a statement was made in the House to bring some form of moral pressure to bear on the regime in Libya to get our citizens out of gaol and bring them back to this country?

Mr. Biffen: That is a very serious point, and I shall refer it to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: Given the Prime Minister's clear indifference to the dispute in the mining industry and her determination not to involve herself in bringing the dispute to a quick end, will the Leader of the House pay serious attention to the need to hold a full debate on the financing of the police operation in the dispute, especially its crippling impact on local, county and police authorities such as those in Greater Manchester?

Mr. Biffen: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to endorse his remarks and the premise to his question about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I understand the seriousness of the issue that he raised, but I must point out that we have a very crowded programme of business already, and I cannot add to it.

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) (No. 2) Bill and Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker: I have two statements to make. The first is about the debate following the Consolidated Fund.
The debate on the motion for the Adjournment will follow the passing of the Consolidated Fund Bill on Wednesday 25 July. Hon. Members should submit their subjects to my office not later than 9 am on Tuesday 24 July. A list showing the subjects and times will be published later that day. Normally the time allotted will not exceed 1½ hours, but I propose to exercise a discretion to allow one or two debates to continue for longer, up to a maximum of three hours. Where identical or similar subjects have been entered by different hon. Members whose names are drawn in the ballot, only the first name will be shown on the list. As some debates may not last the full time allotted to them, it is the responsibility of hon. Members to keep in touch with developments if they are not to miss their turn.
My second statement is about the tabling of oral questions. The details of the implications of the announcement by the Leader of the House on the dates for giving notice of questions are available in the Table Office. I have directed the Table Office to hold a shuffle for questions this evening at 6 o'clock instead of the customary 4 o'clock.

Film Industry (Policy)

The Minister for Information Technology (Mr. Kenneth Baker): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the British film industry.
The British film industry is undergoing a renaissance. We are fortunate to have so many talented producers, writers, directors, actors and outstanding technical skills in film-making. Several companies in Britain have achieved commercial success in quality films. Channel 4 has effectively encouraged the thriving independent production sector.
However, cinema attendances have continued to decline dramatically. From an annual average of 338 million in the 1960s they have dropped to 66 million in 1983. In the same period the number of screens declined from some 3,000 to 1,300. Against that background we have drawn up the following proposals which are contained in the White Paper published today.
Our first and most important conclusion is that the outdated Eady levy on cinema receipts must be ended. Introduced to recycle money from the cinemas to the producing companies it has become an extra tax on seats which cinemas cannot afford. Its revenue in real terms has fallen by six sevenths. It is an elaborate and unfair burden on the industry's weakest sector. The Government propose to bring in legislation to end this in 1985, and at the same time to wind up the British Film Fund Agency, the Cinematograph Films Council, and the National Film Finance Corporation. The legislation will also repeal eight Acts of Parliament and 25 statutory instruments relating to films.
I have considered carefully the case for extending an Eady-type levy to television or to videos. I am, however, convinced that no sort of recycling mechanism is sensible. A levy on TV could lead to an increase in the BBC licence fee and ITV companies are already paying a subscription to Channel 4 which will be financing film-making at a level of about £8 million a year. In their review of copyright the Government are still examining the question of a levy on blank video and audio tapes to protect copyright owners and we intend to invite further comments on this. I have been able to make satisfactory arrangements to replace the money which the Eady levy raised.
Revenue from the Eady levy has in the past provided finance for the NFFC, which has done valuable work to encourage emerging young talent in the British film industry. It has contributed to many notable films including "Gregory's Girl" and "Another Country" and fostered talent which has come to the fore in such international successes as "Chariots of Fire" and "Local Hero". The valuable contribution made with Eady levy finance will in future be secured by a new company in the private sector whose shareholders will initially provide contributions of over £1 million annually. The Government, in addition, will make £1·5 million a year available for five years to co-finance low and medium-budget films to be made in Britain. A further £500,000 a year for five years is to be made available to help in the early stages of the development of film projects. The new company will therefore be able to deploy more than double the resources that NFFC has had in recent years. It is an important new deal for the British film industry.
The National Film and Television School is well respected, and enjoys an international reputation. We have secured independent funding for five years which will more than replace the current level of the Eady contribution. Lord Wilson of Rievaulx and the interim action committee on the film industry recommended updating the equipment at the school and the Government will provide £250,000 for this purpose in 1985–86.
The British Film Institute Production Board also receives a small Eady contribution and I propose, in consultation with the Cinematograph Films Council, to see whether a final payment out of the Eady levy can be made.
During the passage of the Finance Bill through Parliament, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made two amendments specifically to help the film industry. First, qualifying investment in film projects will now come within the scope of the business expansion scheme. This will be a valuable incentive to equity investment in film and will help the small producers who have lately gained the confidence of the City.
Secondly, in addition to the measures announced in the Budget, my right hon. Friend has announced that films will have a further option to write off expenditure on a cost recovery basis against income as it arises, instead of spreading it over the income-producing life of the film. The industry will therefore not normally pay tax on its profits until all expenditure has been written off. This will give greater certainty for those investing in films.
I am very pleased that the industry is pressing ahead strongly with plans for British film year in 1985. This will focus attention on film in education and industry as well as in entertainment. In particular it will aggressively promote the sales of British films overseas.
Our policy is to free the film industry from Government intervention and from an intrusive regulatory regime dating from the days of the silent films. Our policy will clear the way for the industry to operate in a more confident framework and to consolidate upon its success.

Mr. Bryan Gould: Is the Minister aware that this long-delayed statement marks a black day for the British film industry? His failure to take the opportunity offered him by his review to place the industry's finances on a sound basis comes as a further body blow to an industry already sadly damaged by the Chancellor's withdrawal of capital allowances.
Does the Minister recognise that his refusal to extend the principle of the Eady levy to television and video, which are of course the modern equivalent of the cinema box office, means that he has failed to provide a reliable source of finance upon which expansion can be based? The money that is to be contributed by television and video is pitifully inadequate, conditional and guaranteed for three years only. It would be helpful if the Minister would confirm that latter point. It in no way meets the debt that those industries owe the film industry. It will, in any case, largely be money that they would have spent for their own purposes.
Will the Minister give an assurance that his failure to implement a levy on video cassettes does not mean that he has closed his mind to the introduction of some levy as a solution to the problems of the music industry? Will he guarantee that that industry will not have to suffer the same damaging delay as has caused such confusion and uncertainty in the film industry?
Does the Minister accept that the demise of the National Film Finance Corporation, which has done such good work with such limited resources, will be bitterly regretted by all those who care about the future of the British film industry?
This privatisation, like so many other privatisation measures, surely cannot be explained, even at a time of financial crisis, by the need to save the small amount of public money involved. It clearly arises from misplaced ideological zeal for turning the future of the industry over to market forces despite the fact that, as the Monopolies and Mergers Commission found, nothing remotely resembling a free market exists in this area.
Finally, does the Minister understand that he cannot, in good faith, express pride in real achievements such as "Chariots of Fire" and "Gregory's Girl" while at the same time announcing a policy that will inevitably bring much closer commercial and cultural surrender to the Americans, which will threaten the whole future of a valuable British industry?

Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman did not pay much attention to what I said, and his speech must have depended upon the rather inaccurate leaks that have occurred during the past few days. He should have appreciated that the amount of money that the National Film Finance Corporation has had available to it over the past few years is between £1 million and £1·3 million. The proposals that I have put before the House will increase that to about £3 million a year over the next five years. That is a combination of public and private sector money.
I am not persuaded that a levy on video cassettes and blank tapes which will be recycled from one end of the industry to another is appropriate for this or any other industry. I have said in the White Paper and in my statement that the Government are still examining the question of a levy on blank video and audio tapes.
In the copyright Green Paper published in 1981, the Government came down against such a levy, but since then we have received many representations and it is clearly a matter of great interest. We are saying that we will have a further consultative period. It is an issue that evokes strong feelings both ways. There is a lobby that is completely opposed to a levy on blank tapes—roughly the consumer interest; there is a lobby that wants a levy on blank tapes—the copyright owners, the record and film companies. It is a complicated matter and the issue must be put in the public arena for debate. We are preparing to do that later this year and early next year. At the same time, the Common Market will be producing a Green Paper.
I emphasis that our consultations about a blank tape levy will be for copyright purposes—that is, to protect copyright owners, not to recycle funds, as I believe that the system of recycling money from one end of the economic process to the other is entirely inappropriate.

Mr. Roger Gale: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the abolition of the Eady levy is likely to be the kiss of life for many small cinemas and will be especially welcome to a constituent of mine who runs an excellent establishment at Westgate-on-Sea? Is he further aware that the injection of Government and other money into a new company is likely to be extremely attractive to the independent production industry? On my reckoning, about £3 million a year is to be made available. May we

have an assurance that that money will not have to be used exclusively for film finance but can be used to service loans, which can provide far greater sums for small independent cinema and television production?

Mr. Baker: Grants will be made available to the successor to the NFFC and must be used to promote and develop low and medium budget films. How that is done will be up to the management of the company, but I emphasis that funds will be available on a greater scale than the NFFC has enjoyed for many years. The new company will take over from the NFFC and we imagine that the date of transfer will be some time in the late summer or autumn of next year.

Mr. Clement Freud: The film industry will welcome the Minister's announcement of business expansion scheme contributions for that industry, but is he aware that the White Paper still causes considerable fear in the industry and that he should not take too much pride in creating a pigmy to replace a dwarf? How will artistic film-makers be encouraged to contribute in an industry ever more geared towards the commercial and the pornographic? Will the Minister promise to use his best efforts to allow the House to debate this important subject?

Mr. Baker: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the latter point is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but I should be very happy for a debate to take place.
On the artistic and cultural element, we have specifically provided a fund of £500,000 per year for film project development.

Mr. Freud: That is peanuts.

Mr. Baker: It is about twice what is now available. That money will be available for teams of young script writers, producers and directors to work out ideas. The British Film Institute Production Board also makes films of particular cultural interest and the White Paper package provides funds for that work to continue.

Mr. Tim Brinton: I welcome much of the White Paper, but I feel that it does not go far enough. Did my right hon. Friend consult the report of the Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts, on which I served in the last Parliament, which dealt with the film industry in some detail? Did he also consider the enormous importance of uniting Government responsibility for film, television and most of the performing media in one Department and removing the present muddles?
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the main problem for the feature film industry in this country is its lack of attractiveness to high-risk capital from British investors? Does he further agree that the White Paper proposals do not go far enough towards creating a fund? My right hon. Friend has given reasons for rejecting the idea of an Eady levy on television programmes, but did he fully consider that simply collecting ½p per estimated viewer of each feature film shown on television could produce a fund of £20 million to protect and attract investors?

Mr. Baker: There has been a substantial increase in investment in films—a trend which continues strongly this year. Since the terms of the Budget became known, Goldcrest has been able to go to the market to raise more than £12 million for investment in films and Thorn EMI is investing between £20 million and £25 million in new


films this year. There is a flow of money back into films as an investment, but we do not want a return to the days when many people invested in films through what can only be described as highly imaginative financial dealings—the main interest was tax avoidance rather than investment in film—because one cannot build a strong, vibrant and confident industry on that basis.
As for a television levy, I believe that my hon. Friend underestimates the extent to which television is going into feature film-making. Channel 4 has spent £8 million this year in the independent production sector and several of the large independent companies are making feature films for the first time. I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that that is a significant increase in British feature film-making in the television sector.

Mr. Tom Clarke: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Members of Parliament who have waited two years for his statement will be as disappointed with it as the film industry, because it is utterly inadequate to produce the investment that the industry needs? Is he aware that he has taken away the Eady levy without putting anything substantial in its place and that the Government's attitude is reflected in the very small amount of money being given to the British film year? Will the Minister give us the figures?
The Minister suggested that my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) had relied on leaks for his information. Does he think that Mr. Hassan depended on the same leaks when he resigned from the NFFC, given that most of his predictions proved to be entirely correct?

Mr. Baker: His predictions did not prove to be correct. Mr. Hassan resigned from the NFFC because he wanted to go into private film production, which is an expression of great confidence on his part. I have spoken to Mr. Hassan, for whom I have a high regard, and I am sure that he will be very successful in his career in promoting and developing the private film industry. He announced his intention to go into private film production two or three months ago. At that time he said that he regarded the £1·5 million then available to the NFFC as too small. It has now been doubled. The hon. Gentleman suggests that the industry will be disappointed with the proposals, but to me all the signs have been that it is far from disappointed with them.

Mr. Jeremy Hanley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I welcome his statement and his confidence—in my view well placed—in the British film industry and in the role of the local cinema, which has had a tough time of late? May I urge him, however, to give the earliest possible consideration to the case for a levy on blank audio and video tapes to protect those who suffer regular institutionalised theft of intellectual property?

Mr. Baker: My hon. Friend puts the case well. It is essentially a copyright case, but there are arguments on the other side. We have had many representations from consumer interests who object to having to pay extra for blank tapes just as they would object to paying a television levy of ½p or 1p per viewer for the screening of films. We must balance the differing points of view. We shall be setting out the case for and against and also the complexity

of the scheme. It is relatively easy to collect a great deal of money from a levy on blank tapes. It is infinitely more difficult to distribute it and to find a fair way of determining how many times a tape has been listened to at home or how many times a film has been copied. There are genuine administrative problems of fairness and equity in such a system.

Mr. John Fraser: Why are the Government allowing the video industry to export millions of pounds of profit to Japanese manufacturers without recycling some of the profits on video hire to the film industry? Is he aware that video hire is emptying the cinemas and involves a great deal of counterfeiting without recycling much money back into film-making?

Mr. Baker: It is a curious concept that one should impose a levy on the hardware of an industry and recycle the proceeds to another part of the industry — production. The development of the video industry, the cable industry and DBS will provide new opportunities for the producing side of the film industry. About 150 quality films are made in the English language each year and there is a demand for at least double that number. The demand is the result not just of the cinema but of television, video and DBS. I am sure that the British film industry—with the talents at its disposal and the support that I have given it today—will be able to make use of that opportunity and make many more films to meet the demand.

Mr. Tim Smith: My right hon. Friend's commitment to the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield will be very welcome, but could he expand on his statement that there will be independent funding for five years? What form will the funding take, how much money will there be and what will happen after the five-year period?

Mr. Baker: The National Film and Television School at Beaconsfield has an international reputation for excellence, and we should be proud of it. I realise that it is in my hon. Friend's constituency. The school receives just over £500,000 a year from Eady. I have secured undertakings for £600,000 for the next five years. In addition, I will provide a grant of £250,000 next year to re-equip the school for the production of films.

Mr. Chris Smith: The Minister has not referred to the need to save and preserve the archives of historic film held by the institutions that he intends to abolish or privatise. Much of that material is rapidly and dangerously deteriorating. Will the Minister assure the House that he will consider this major problem and that, when he brings forward the legislation, he will take steps to tackle the issue?

Mr. Baker: That is an important point. The role that the hon. Gentleman urges me to take on is very well fulfilled by the British Film Institute, which, in the course of the past 18 months, has raised substantial sums of money to preserve film. One of our oil companies is also providing substantial funds for the re-recording of the black and white films of the '20s and '30s.

Sir Kenneth Lewis: As one who occasionally goes to see a film, and who spends much more time switching off American rubbish on the television—there is far too much of it—I am glad that my right hon. Friend has done something about the industry. He is the first Minister to do so. The Opposition


have been somewhat churlish in their response to his statement. I have the impression that many talented British producers and directors have difficulty in finding support and money, and have to turn to other countries such as America. I believe that "Chariots of Fire" faced that problem. How will the Minister's proposals help the independent producer, who is not helped by the big distributors, by giving him the support that has been lacking in the past few years?

Mr. Baker: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. He is quite right. The independent producer is one of the most important elements in British film-making. Independent producers have been very creative, and there is much talent in our country at the moment. My proposals will help the independent producers in several ways. First, they will enable films to benefit from the business expansion scheme. Investors will be able to invest up to £40,000 a year in film projects and receive the tax benefits individually. The industry has pressed me for that innovation again and again, and I am glad that the Chancellor, in the Budget, extended the business expansion scheme to that area.
The successor to the NFFC, on which the Opposition have poured scorn, will have available at least £3 million a year, or possibly more, for low-budget and medium-budget films. Traditionally, those films are the most difficult to finance. It is relatively easy to raise large sums of money to make a new James Bond or Walt Disney film, but much more difficult to raise money for "Local Hero", or a film about two people running in the 1924 Olympics. My proposals will make it easier for young producers—in particular the producers of short films, as making short films provides useful experience — to get into the business.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: Anyone who has seen "Gregory's Girl" and "Local Hero" will acknowledge that there is much film-making talent in Scotland. How will these proposals encourage such talent in Scotland and in other communities physically far removed from London? Will such talent and potential talent have equality of opportunity?

Mr. Baker: Creative talent in Scotland is not limited to the film industry, but some strikingly successful young producers and directors happen to have come from Scotland. They have been helped through the NFFC and will continue to be helped by its successor. I am sure that there are many more talented people where they came from.

Mr. Mark Fisher: How can the Minister of State, with a straight face, talk about freeing the industry from Government interference, when he knows that the industry has suffered from terminal neglect by Governments of both parties for most of the past 30 years? The financial package that he has announced and the changes in the Budget do not provide a secure financial base for profitable and innovative industry for which the Financial Secretary promised support during discussion of the Finance Bill. Does not that mean that the Government will be virtually the only Government in Europe—either East or West — who do not support a national film industry or recognise that the national Government have a responsibility to do so? The Minister's statement does not announce the renaissance of the industry. The right hon. Gentleman is sounding the death knell for everything other than the purely commercial side of the industry. He has done nothing to help a film industry which reflects the culture of this country. The statement is a disgrace.

Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman cannot have heard what I have just said. We are abolishing the fiddly and intrusive regulatory regime. We are abolishing three quangos, and repealing eight Acts of Parliament and 25 statutory instruments. At the same time we are providing a framework within which more money can flow from the private and the public sector into the creative side of the film industry, about which the hon. Gentleman is so concerned. I believe that all areas of the industry will be grateful for the proposals.
I am also relieving the cinemas of a tax on cinema seats which amounts to some £4·5 million a year. I hope that that change will make cinemas more attractive. I hope that they will become places where one can take the family.

Housing Benefits

The Minister for Social Security (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): I beg to move,
That the draft Housing Benefits (Increase of Needs Allowances) Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
I hope that it will be for the convenience of the House if, in dealing with these regulations, I also mention the prayers on housing standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition:
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing Benefits (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 941), dated 5th July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th July, be annulled.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing Benefits Amendment (No. 3) Regulations 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 940), dated 3rd July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th July, be annulled.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing Benefits (Subsidy) Amendment Order 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 1001), dated 17th July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th July, be annulled.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If that is the wish of the House.

Dr. Boyson: Four separate statutory instruments dealing with housing benefits are covered in this debate. The first two of these—the Housing Benefits (Increase of Needs Allowances) Regulations and the Housing Benefits (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations—are concerned with uprating. The Housing Benefits (Increase of Needs Allowances) Regulations put into effect the Government's proposals for increasing the needs allowances which were set out in the statement which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made to the House on 18 June. With the exception of the needs allowance addition for a dependent child, which I shall come to shortly, the needs allowances are to be increased by the usual formula—by 4·8 per cent. The needs allowance for a dependent child will be raised by 50p more than is required to maintain its value and as my right hon. Friend made clear in his statement on 6 February, we also propose, and regulations will be brought forward later, to give a further increase of £1 from April 1985. That will mean an overall rise of over 16 per cent. since November 1983, a real help to low income families with children.
The old and new rates of all of the amounts are set out in the Housing Benefits (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations and will apply from November. In all cases, they have been uprated in line with the traditional formulae and in one case by significantly more. We are providing for the total disregard, in the calculation of housing benefit, of any living away from home allowance paid by the Manpower Services Commission. This allowance is currently £40 per week and, at present, the amount that is ignored is £15. This is a considerable improvement which will help all those who have to live away from home while attending training courses run by the commission.
I should also mention the principal earner's disregard. This is the amount of the claimant's earnings that is ignored when calculating entitlement to standard housing benefit. The disregard is intended to take account of the extra expenses of going to work, such as income tax, national insurance and fares. It is calculated in such a way that those work expenses are exactly covered at the point where a person's income net of those expenses equals the

single person's needs allowance. The traditional formula produces a new rate of ·17 as opposed to the current rate of £17·45. The formula works both ways. In 1981, when tax allowances were not increased, the disregard leapt from £9·60 to £15·25. The reduction this year is due to the fact that personal tax allowances were increased ahead of inflation in the last Budget. I want to make it clear that this does not mean that wage earners on housing benefit will receive 45p less in benefit. Because of the way in which housing benefit is calculated, for most wage-earners the effect on benefit will be in the range of 4p to 17p and this will in all cases be far outweighed by the increases in the needs allowances. All wage earners will therefore get more benefit at the 1984 uprating, on top of the higher personal tax allowances which have also been in effect since April.
The main changes in the Housing Benefit Amendment (No. 3) Regulations are the second phase of the package of measures that was previously announced to restrain the rate of growth of the social security budget. The House has had several debates on these issues. The first stage took effect in April and the second stage measures will come into effect in November.
I should like to put those proposals in perspective. The cost of the social security programme has risen constantly recently. It will be about £39 billion in 1985–86—nearly 30 per cent. of total public expenditure. Despite the financial constraints of recent times we have maintained all of the key elements of social security and we are spending 27 per cent. more in real terms than when we first came into office in 1979. This vast and growing programme cannot be exempt from restraint. It must be kept within overall expenditure targets if our economic strategy is to continue to bear fruit. [Laughter.] There will be little laughter if we discuss the rate of inflation under the Labour Government. I might be forced to remind Opposition Members what happened.

Mr. Charles Kennedy: In view of the Minister's proud boast that the Government are spending 27 per cent. more in real terms, will he say how much that calculation is affected by the simple fact that, as a result of what the Minister regards as the success of Government policies, so many more people are either unemployed or entirely dependent on the state because they are denied the right to provide their own means as they do not have a job? How much does the huge increase in the number of unemployed people account for the percentage increase that the Minister has claimed for benefits?

Dr. Boyson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. I hoped that somebody would. That issue was raised in our debate on poverty and wealth about three weeks ago and I gave a calculation which I worked out at the Dispatch Box. I now have the figures. Spending on social security since 1979 has increased in real terms by £7·7 billion. Of that, £1 billion goes on the extra 650,000 pensioners as compared with when we came into office and £3·25 billion is due to the higher number of the unemployed. If we add those figures, we find that the Government have still spent an extra £3 billion in real terms on social security since coming into office. I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. I hoped that somebody would.
We must avoid a return to high inflation rates, which are disastrous for business and industry.

Mr. Brynmor John: Does the £3·25 billion increase arise because of the level of long-term unemployment and the additional people who receive supplementary benefit?

Dr. Boyson: I shall write to the hon. Gentleman tomorrow if I am wrong — but I am usually right. [Interruption.] I am surprised that Opposition Members ask questions if they do not believe the answers. I am glad that the scepticism of my right hon. and hon. Friends is not as intense. The £3·25 billion is for the unemployed, whether they receive unemployment pay or supplementary benefit. The Government still now spend between £3 billion and £3·5 billion more in real terms on social security than did the Labour Government. I am grateful to Opposition Members for giving me the opportunity to stress that point.

Mrs. Margaret Beckett: Perhaps the Minister would like to put something else on the record. According to my calculations for the period that he has quoted, about £50 billion has accrued to the Government from the North sea alone. He has been allowed £3 billion of that for what he describes as real increases in benefits. How much of the rest went on tax allowances for the wealthy?

Dr. Boyson: I shall not be drawn into matters that we discussed in our previous debate. On my calculations, North sea gas provides 5 per cent. at most of gross national product in any year. One hopes for a regular 5 per cent. per annum growth in economic production rather than dependence on the North sea. That is the Government's aim.

Mr. John Fraser: The hon. Gentleman talks about restraint of public subsidy, but does he understand that the rise in mortgage interest rates which was announced last Friday adds about £500 million to £600 million in a full year to the subsidy that the Treasury gives on mortgage interest relief for owner-occupiers? Why are the Government happy to bear that increase while they are reducing the subsidy for housing costs for people who rent rather than buy their homes?

Dr. Boyson: Time and again we ask the Opposition what their policy on mortgage interest relief is. Anyone who reads our debates would believe that mortgage interest relief finds no favour with Opposition Members, although it is popular with the mass of the population. I have the figures with me of the amounts——

Mr. John Fraser: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dr. Boyson: The hon. Gentleman must listen. I have not reached the end of the sentence. The average amount given to each individual who receives housing benefits is higher in money terms than mortgage relief. About 7 million households are receiving housing benefits and about 7 million households receive mortgage relief. The sum spent on housing benefits is near £4 billion and the sum spent on mortgage relief is about £3 billion. So the amount of money paid for housing benefits is higher than that for mortgage relief.

Mr. Fraser: Will the Minister now answer my question?

Mr. Ralph Howell: My hon. Friend says that 7 million people are receiving one sort of benefit and that 7 million people are receiving another. Is he aware

that that covers about 75 per cent. of households? That ridiculous situation must be resolved. We are all handing money round to each other and the only people who do not benefit are those who have paid off their mortgages.

Dr. Boyson: I know that my hon. Friend has studied, and written on the problem for many years. I am aware that something has been published on social security almost every day for the past fortnight. Surveys are being conducted in the Department. I welcome my hon. Friend's observation. The proper targeting of social security is being debated all over the country. It is right that that should be done.

Mr. Michael Meacher: I was so enjoying the Minister's speech. Will he answer the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) and say how he justifies cutting housing benefit substantially in November for those on low incomes when those on high incomes will receive at a stroke £500 million to £600 million more from the increased mortgage interest relief?
The Minister boasts about the extra £3 billion in real terms in social security payments. Leaving aside the increased number of pensioners and payments to the greater number of unemployed, what are the three main components in that extra £3 billion of social security?

Dr. Boyson: I shall not give a list of the components of social security expenditure, otherwise there will not be enough time for hon. Members to contribute to the debate. I shall just reply on the question of mortgage interest relief.
I should be very surprised if a calculation could not be made — we shall have one made — to show that the proportion of mortgage interest relief under the Government of 1974–79 going to people who bought their houses was higher than the amount given in housing benefits at that time. Housing benefits have increased far more under this Government.

Mr. Meacher: The Minister is not answering the question that was asked.

Dr. Boyson: Perhaps not, but I am answering this question.
We have considered carefully where savings could be made. Only after considering all the available options did we conclude that housing benefit was the fairest and most reasonable area in which to make reductions. Although it is means-tested it goes to one in three households in Great Britain, including some on average incomes and above. That feature has been recognised by the Social Security Advisory Committee, which wrote in its report on the original housing benefit proposals arising from the autumn statement:
There are some aspects of the housing benefit scheme which extend financial help further up the income ladder than anywhere else in the social security system and if cuts in social security spending are essential it might be reasonable to take resources from there rather than from the means-tested safety net.
The expenditure on and coverage of housing benefit has increased sharply over the past five to 10 years. Expenditure on standard benefit and its forerunner schemes has more than doubled in real terms in those years. When indexed for inflation, it rose from just over £500 million in 1972–73 to nearly £1,400 million in 1983–84.

Mr. John: Will the Minister give way?

Dr. Boyson: No, I shall not give way. I intend to give these figures to the House, although the hon. Gentleman may not like them.
The level of rebates as a percentage of earnings in the past five years has risen from 3·6 per cent. to 4·9 per cent. In that period, average rent rebates have increased in real terms from about £5·50 to more than £8 per house. Even though we have sold many council houses to their tenants, which is one of the successes of our Government, the number of council tenants in Great Britain receiving standard housing benefit has increased from 1·2 million in 1978–79 to 1·8 million last year. That shows how far the payments have escalated.

Mrs. Beckett: Will the Minister give way?

Dr. Boyson: I shall give way to the hon. Lady when I have made this point.
We now have an overall housing benefit scheme with more than 6·5 million recipients, costing nearly £4 billion. That means something over £3·50 a week per household. Clearly, some sensible degree of control is necessary, and would have been necessary whichever Government were in power.
The savings from the overall package are relatively modest, amounting to less than 5 per cent. of total housing benefit expenditure. We have designed the changes so that, as far as possible, they affect households with relatively high incomes and those with working non-dependants who can be expected to contribute more to housing costs. By modifying and phasing our original proposals, we have materially lessened the impact on individuals. I remind the House that no one on supplementary benefit or below the needs allowance will be affected by the November changes. We have protected the most vulnerable.

Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman complains that some people on and above average earnings are getting housing benefit. Does he not recognise that that is the result of the Rossi price index, which cut housing benefit and put it on to a different index from the general index of prices? Now the Minister complains about what his Government created.

Dr. Boyson: I was not complaining. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman read that into my tone of voice. I was merely stating the position. We had to make a decision on that basis.

Mrs. Beckett: Can the Minister reconcile what he is saying about the extent to which benefit is paid, based on the income scale, with the answer that he gave me on 20 June setting out gross income levels at which rent rebates will no longer be payable? The answer did not include figures that even approach the level of average earnings. The Minister claims that benefit is payable in many circumstances to those with above-average incomes. Can he account for his differing replies?

Dr. Boyson: I gave the figures in the last debate on this matter. I shall turn them up later. I did not bring the figures with me today because I presumed that we were all well-read before the debate began. I thank the hon. Lady for showing me the figures at this stage, but I regret that I am unable to speak and read at the same time. I am sorry to disappoint the Opposition by not giving the figures.

Mr. Robin Squire: Before the Minister leaves housing benefits and the staggering figures that he

has just announced for the scheme will he join me in hoping that the independent review that his right hon. Friend announced will produce recommendations for a streamlined scheme to reduce the cost of administering the complex system, which reaches many households? I hope that the system will be more understandable to those who benefit from it.

Dr. Boyson: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's remarks. I can only concur with his sentiments. He points to the reasons for the survey. I shall refer to the review later in this speech, if ever I get to that part.
The change contained in regulation 2(6) concerns the introduction of non-dependant deductions, or assumed contributions towards housing costs, for young people aged 16 to 17. The deductions are at the lower rate, which will stand in November at £3·30 per week overall.
The deduction recognises the reality in most households where help with housing expenses is expected from a working 16 or 17-year-old. Rather than making cuts right across the board, we thought it right to make some savings where the non-dependants could reasonably make a contribution. This proposal is not entirely new. A deduction for 16 to 17-year-olds has in one form or another been a well-established part of the supplementary benefit scheme, as operated under Labour Administrations, and was discontinued only with the introduction of the housing benefit scheme.
We believe that the amount of the assumed contribution is far from unreasonable. The average weekly wage of male 16 to 17-year-olds is expected to stand at over £67 in November, and for females in that age group it will be over £61. A contribution of up to £3·30 a week towards household costs in these circumstances is not, by any stretch of the imagination, excessive.
We have also taken steps to protect certain individuals. The deduction does not apply to 16 to 17-year-olds on supplementary benefit, on a youth training scheme or noncontributory invalidity pension.
The second proposal is to increase the rent taper above the needs allowance from 26 per cent. to 29 per cent. Viewed in another way, benefit will be reduced by 3p for every £1 of income above the needs allowance. Only the relatively better-off households will be affected, when their income exceeds the needs allowance. For pensioners, from this November, that will be over £10 above the basic retirement pension.
The third change concerns the weekly minimum amounts of benefit payable. The minimal of from 10p to 50p would be raised from 20p to 50p for rent rebates and allowances, and for rate rebates. Clearly it makes administrative sense to reduce the number of small payments so that local authorities can concentrate their effort on those needing more help. There will be no change in the minimum payments for poorest claimants—those with incomes below the needs allowances and those on supplementary benefit including housing benefit supplement. Again, we have ensured that the most vulnerable are covered. Minimum payments will remain at 20p for rent rebates and allowances and 10p for rate rebates. We had originally suggested increasing the rents minima to £1 last year but changed our view after consultation. The Social Security Advisory Committee accepted the fact that the minima were due for an increase because they had not been increased for many years.
Our original proposals for November also included a modification of the criteria for eligibility to the high-rent schemes that offer more generous rebates. Those schemes were originally, in 1972, meant for authorities with exceptionally high rents — 150 per cent. over the average for the country — but over the years the qualifying thresholds have been eroded. We felt that a change was overdue.
We therefore proposed to raise the current thresholds from 120 per cent. of average local authority rents and 115 per cent. of average private sector rents to a more realistic level of 130 per cent. in both cases. However, as hon. Members will recall, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State undertook to consider with local authority associations how a limit on losses from the taper and high rent changes in November could be brought into effect.
Following discussions with the local authority associations to see whether a cut-off point was possible, we decided that the increases in the high-rent scheme thresholds, which were originally deferred from 1 April, should be deferred again from November this year until April 1985. About 90,000 households are covered by the high-rent scheme, of which more than half are pensioner households. The postponement of the change will limit the amount of benefit lost by those people who would otherwise have experienced the largest reduction in November, while avoiding administrative difficulties for local authorities.
We considered ways of limiting the maximum losses incurred by individuals. However, after consultation with the local authority associations we decided that that would be unacceptably complex and cumbersome. In the words of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities in a letter to us:
the administrative burden that would have to be taken on by the local authorities would be in every sense disproportionate to the benefit to the individual claimant".
Deferment of the high-rent scheme changes represents effective yet operationally simple protection. Thus, on the suggestion of the local authorities, we have delayed until April introducing the new high-rent levels.
As with the April measures, we have with the November changes sought to protect the poorest families. Out of over 6·5 million recipients, about 5·75 million, including 3·5 million pensioner households, will not be affected by the taper and minima changes. The bulk of the losses will also be small. Average weekly losses from the November taper and minima changes will be about 42p a week—32p for pensioners. I also stress again that no household on supplementary benefit and no family below the needs allowance need lose from the November changes.
I shall now move on to the other changes in the Housing Benefits Amendment (No. 3) Regulations 1984. In response to recommendations made by the Social Security Advisory Committee in its report last December, we are making improvements to the provision under which the lower rate of non-dependant deduction can apply to non-dependants who are sick or unemployed. If that matter is raised in the debate, I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be able to give the details.
Finally, we are taking steps to eliminate an area of possible abuse of the housing benefits scheme. Most overseas students are admitted to this country on condition that they support themselves without having recourse to public funds, including housing benefit. That is the

agreement on which they enter. However, the regulations themselves do not preclude an overseas student from eligibility for benefit. Consequently, if an overseas student chooses to ignore his entry conditions and claim housing benefit, there is nothing in existing regulations to prevent it being awarded to him. That is unacceptable. Therefore, we are amending the regulations to ensure that overseas students for whom housing benefit is not intended are excluded from eligibility for it.

Mr. John Fraser: Does the Minister realise the burden that that will put on multiracial boroughs such as Lambeth and Southwark, and that it will require housing benefit officers to start looking at the passport and entry conditions of those who claim housing benefit? Does he not realise that we are already taking an enormous amount of money from foreign students who are bringing foreign exchange into this country, and that the least that we could do is leave the scheme as it is for them?

Dr. Boyson: I always believe — I trust that the Opposition do as well—that when people sign a contract of entry, they intend to carry it out. That is what I do when I sign anything, and I expect anyone from here or abroad to do the same. Does the hon. Gentleman now agree with me?

Mr. Fraser: We disagree about the eligibility for benefit. What will happen when a housing benefit authority sees that a student is in breach of his immigration conditions? Will there be a breach of the normal wall that is supposed to exist between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security over the enforcement of immigration control?

Dr. Boyson: Foreign students take courses in this country and many move on to postgraduate work; they do much for the advancement of the universities. I should like to make that clear. We are dealing not with all the students who come into this country but with one section of students who enter under various conditions, scholarships and so on. If they come in under the condition that they will receive not one penny of support from the taxpayer, that should be adhered to. Perhaps I am naive in believing that people should carry out the contracts that they sign, but I shall continue to believe it, and I imagine that the overwhelming majority of the British people would do the same.
The Housing Benefits (Subsidy) Amendment Order 1984 is important and bears out what has been said in other debates. The purpose of this short amendment order is very simple. Once again it has been brought to our attention that a local authority — Sheffield — is looking for ways of increasing its revenue at the expense of the housing benefit subsidy system. In this case, it is proposing a new rent structure from next month that would increase rents considerably for all tenants. In the case of tenants in receipt of housing benefit, the increase would mean that the council would do a few minor repairs for them. Housing benefit tenants would be given no choice in the matter. Other tenants would be given the option of doing their minor repairs themselves in return for a repairs grant from the council. Needless to say, the repairs grant would roughly equal the rent increase.
A system which, leaving aside housing benefit, would automatically mean higher net payments for poorer tenants strikes Conservative Members as decidedly odd We have


concluded that the real reason for the different treatment of tenants depending on their benefit status, was simply that the council was looking for a device to milk the housing benefit subsidy system. We made it clear by the inclusion of new provisions in the main 1983–84 subsidy order, considered by the House in February, that we are not prepared to tolerate such a ploy. One of those provisions was specially designed to close an earlier loophole that Sheffield was thinking of using to increase its income at central Government's expense. We warned the local authority associations on that occasion that if we learned of any other proposed abuses, we would act quickly to block them. That is what we are doing now and will do again if it becomes necessary.
I hope that our evident determination in this area will mean that any council that might have thought of following Sheffield's example will now turn its mind instead to discharging responsibly its housing benefit functions rather than wasting time on a cat and mouse game with the Government. I am confident that the great majority of hon. Members will share those sentiments and deplore the attempts that have been made to milk the system. I have no doubt that, given the amounts of money involved, if a Labour Government were in power the same orders would be before the House, despite the artificial indignation that now comes from the Opposition. If we had not put down this amendment order there could have been a net profit to Sheffield of £5 million a year and, if other authorities did the same, a transfer of several hundred million pounds a year from central Government funds to local authorities. No responsible Government of any colour in Britain could allow that to happen when it had not been budgeted for and when it was done by an arrangement made by the local authority.

Mr. Meacher: Will the Minister give the total saving in a full year, which he has not so far given either in parliamentary answers or in the debate, from all the changes in each of the orders?

Dr. Boyson: I do not have that figure now. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will give it later. I could give an estimate but I know that the hon. Gentleman prefers accuracy. When we started it was about £55 million. The relevant figures seem to be arriving by divine guidance, if not by lightning, as at York. I now have the figure for the November changes and it is between £45 million and £50 million. My estimate is certainly worth a top second if not a first-class degree.

Mr. Tony Favell: Will my hon. Friend confirm that housing benefit is now costing £3 per week per worker in Britain?

Dr. Boyson: I can confirm that my hon. Friend is as near right as can be.
In the coming months the housing benefit review, under the independent chairmanship of Mr. Jeremy Rowe, will be looking at the scope and structure of the scheme and at ways of improving its administration. Evidence is being submitted to the review and I look forward to its findings.
However, it is fair to say that taken together, all the housing benefit regulations being debated today constitute an important step in the control and development of the scheme. The value of the needs allowances has been

maintained and there has been a 50p real increase in the child needs additions, with a further £1 rise to follow in April 1985. There have been several technical amendments making sensible changes and, at the recommendation of the Social Security Advisory Committee, a beneficial one for sick and unemployed non-dependants.
Finally, available resources are being better targeted on those in greatest need. If we are to curb inflation and ease the burden on taxpayers, particularly poorer families and pensioners, we must restrain all increases in public expenditure, and that includes the social security programme.
I fear that the Opposition will promise, as they usually do, to spend more on almost every item of social expenditure, forgetting that there is always a bill. The electorate, however, will not forget that the bill was 112 per cent. inflation under the 1974–79 Labour Government, and that more than half of our people's savings — including those of pensioners — were wiped out. This Government are determined that that will not happen again, and I have no doubt that in that aim we shall have the support of the great majority of British people.

Mr. Michael Meacher: The central argument in the debate is about whether there is any justification at all for further cuts in housing benefit. We have just been told by the Minister that they total £45 million to £50 million. We have listened to the Minister's speech and to many, what I can only describe as weasel words, to justify a whole array of mean and niggardly cuts in the instruments. The Minister's argument, which was the centrepiece of his speech, was that the Government were on the scrounge for cuts and their eye fell on housing benefit. The justification for that was that there are 6 million recipients of housing benefit and that the cost is nearly £4 billion.
What the Minister did not say—and it is the central issue — is that the cost of housing benefit is so great because the Government have put up rents by such an unprecedented amount that there are many people today who, unfortunately, are dependent on means-tested housing benefit. That is the central reason for this situation. That is why it is so unfair for the Minister to say that a Labour Government would act in the same way. The Labour party would never have got into the situation in which the Government find themselves today.
Our first and major reason for praying against the housing benefit instruments is the fact that they have been brought forward at all when, as the Minister said at the end of his speech, the Government have set up a housing benefit review precisely to examine the scope and structure of the scheme. The purpose of the review ostensibly is to find out whether housing benefit is helping those most in need. The review team has been given an appropriately short time scale and is expected to report in the autumn. Yet the Government are rushing to put through further major cuts even though they must clearly pre-empt the results of that inquiry. Surely there could scarcely be a clearer sign that the review is simply a smokescreen for further cuts. So eager are the Government to get on with the business of cutting benefits that they cannot even wait for a few months for their own review to be completed.
The instruments are now bringing forward yet further additional major cuts in housing benefit for both


pensioners and low-paid families. It is no good the Minister saying, as he did, that the poorest people are protected. They are not. By any standards many poor people will be hit by the cuts in November. They are damaging and unfair. They are damaging not only because the cuts are large, not only because they are at the expense of the poor, but because they are part of a series of deliberate cuts that the Government clearly have no intention of stopping.
The Secretary of State's statement yesterday in response to pleas to put a limit on housing benefit losses arising from the cuts by postponing the high rent scheme until April 1985 is like someone who has hit a person three times in the face then turning round and saying that he wants to limit the damage so he will not hit him a fourth time. That is really what it amounts to and that is not needed at all.
This time round the Government are making three main cuts in housing benefit—an increase, as the Minister said, in the rent taper from 26p to 29p, a withdrawal of all benefit entitlement of more than 50p in the case of those with incomes above the needs allowance, and the introduction of a deduction from eligible rent when a household contains a non-dependant aged 16 or 17 who is not on supplementary benefit or non-contributory invalidity pension.
The first cut alone will penalise 1,130,000 households. That figure was given in an answer to a question asked by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden). A large number of them are pensioner households. It would be bad enough if that were a one-off but it is in fact part of a continuing and rapid erosion of rent rebates that the Government have been engineering over the past 18 months. Let me give an example provided by the Shelter Housing Aid Centre, which is extremely helpful to all hon. Members. A single pensioner with a gross income of £70 a week and paying an average local authority rent had a rent rebate of £3·93—nearly £4—in March last year. In April, when housing benefit was introduced, the Government cut it to £2·88 a week. In April 1984, the Government cut it again to £1·57. Now it is proposed to cut it yet again in November to only 78p a week. I do not know what conclusion other hon. Members draw, but it seems clear to me that the Government believe that pensioners are so well off that they are able to bear these continual cuts.
That gives the lie to the Government's constant boast that they have honoured their pledge to pensioners by uprating pensions in line with prices. They give with one hand, but they take away with the other. That has happened four times with housing benefit in the past 18 months and no doubt the process will continue after November.
For low-paid families on about two thirds of national average earnings and with two children, the same pattern of increasing cuts is apparent. Assuming an average local authority rent, they had a rent rebate of £3·24 a week in March 1983. By November, that will have been phased out completely.
It is not just that low-paid families are being hammered into the ground by never-ending cuts. They are also being trapped in their poverty, because the taper increase exacerbates the poverty trap. From November, low-paid workers with a rent rebate will face a marginal tax rate of 77 per cent. How can that be right or fair when the highest-paid directors — men like Mr. Giordano, who is the highest paid on £500,000 a year — are liable to a

marginal tax rate of only 60 per cent? How can the Government justify worsening the poverty trap? I know that it is difficult to remove it, but the Government are gratuitously worsening it.

Mr. Favell: The hon. Gentleman has been talking about cuts in housing benefits for low-income families. Will he also say something about the cuts in tax for those families in the past two or three years?

Mr. Meacher: The tables issued by the Treasury at Budget time show that the total tax take from all families, except those on incomes of over £30,000 a year, who have made a killing, has increased substantially. That applies not only to those on average earnings, but to those on well below average earnings and those on two or three times average earnings. I am sure that the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) is anxious to score a political point, but the facts go against him. Even worse than the losses due to the taper is the Government's continuing vendetta—I use that word advisedly—against young workers on low wages living in council houses. How else can one explain why the Government have picked upon 115,000 such families to take a cut of £3·30 a week as a result of the introduction of non-dependant deductions for 16 to 17-year-olds in work? One third of those families live on supplementary benefit.
That will undoubtedly increase the tension between young people and their families. It will also increase the pressure on young people to leave home to avoid that deduction. There is some evidence of that pressure, but we do not have all the evidence that we need.
The Government's argument is that steep increases in contributions towards housing costs can reasonably be expected from relatives over the age of 16 because, in the words of the Secretary of State,
the non-dependant should make a contribution rather than the taxpayer.
If that is the logic, why does that logic not apply to non-dependants living in households receiving tax relief on their mortgages? There are about 1·25 million such households and SHAC has calculated that such a move would produce savings of about £269 million—a vastly greater sum than that being saved by all the cuts that we are debating.
Why do the Government not follow that course? Is it because non-dependants in rent rebate families are likely to be working class, living in council houses and voting Labour, while non-dependants in tax relief households are likely to be middle class and voting Conservative? It is difficult to think of any other explanation. That is why we say that the cuts are so blatantly politically motivated. That is what we find so objectionable about them.
There is another reason why we reject the proposals. Housing benefit continues to be the biggest administrative fiasco that we have seen in this country since the war. Despite soaring organisational costs, there is little or no sign that bungling is being brought under control.
The Minister's figures suggest that administrative costs this year will total £56 million, compared with last year's estimate of only £17 million. What will be shown for the extra £40 million of taxpayers' money, which is being squandered on what is supposed to be a streamlining operation?
I have a few examples from citizens' advice bureaux in various parts of the country. They have all arisen in the past two or three months. A CAB in Lancashire reported:


We have had several inquiries relating to the changes in Housing Benefit effected in April 1984, most of which have been concerned with a reduction of benefit due to non-dependants. Often there has been no explanation as to why benefit has gone down and in many cases a higher deduction than is correct has been made. There have also been cases where the DHSS have not informed the local authority regarding changes in non-dependant status.
A national survey carried out by the CAB found that miscalculations of housing benefit were made in a staggering one in four cases. In more than three quarters of those cases, there were underpayments. Overpayments were made in less than a quarter. That is after the scheme has been in operation for 15 months. Surely that is an unprecedentedly bad record. It is farcical in a scheme that is supposed to be a streamlining operation.
People are still being forced into financial crisis by the bungling that occurs. I know that local authorities try hard and I do not wish to say anything against their sincere efforts to improve the administration of an incredibly complex scheme. The structuring of the scheme makes it difficult to operate.
The CAB in Norwich gives an example. It says of a woman claimant:
She used to get £18·76 rent rebate and was told it was reduced to £18·34 from 1.4.84. When she went to her bank she found none had been paid in since 2.4.84. She rang the District Council and was told that a mysterious £64 had appeared on figures from DHSS so they were withholding rebate. No one told her about this or why it had arisen. She pays £25 rent, earns £23·50 and has £24 maintenance. She has an unemployed girl of 17 and is down to her last £14 with an electricity bill of £70 outstanding.
I am not quoting cases that have been carefully chosen to demonstrate the difficulties. There are dozens of such cases in CAB files. The hon. Member for Kemptown forcefully makes the point in the House that similar things happen to pensioners who are perhaps least able to look after their own interests.
My third and last case comes from the Hatfield CAB. It states:
An elderly pensioner claimed supplementary benefit and certificated housing benefit for the first time. Her daughter asked the DHSS whether her mother would have to pay rates. She was told her mother didn't have to pay anything. The pensioner now has £100 of arrears, a court summons has been taken out and bailiffs have been to the house. The local authority refuses to accept anything less than £10 per week in repayment, even accepting the DHSS's response.
The Opposition intend to vote against these instruments because we believe that they are wrong on five separate counts. They are wrong because they pre-empt the review that the Government have set up. The Government should perhaps have listened to their friends on The Times, who on 14 February said that until the housing benefit review had reported, the Government should forgo their savings from the scheme.
The instruments are wrong because they are, yet again, hitting hundreds of thousands of poor pensioners and poor families, who have already suffered financial hardship from earlier cuts. They are wrong because they penalise the poor while letting the rich off scot free. In a parliamentary answer on 7 March 1983 the Minister, referring to executives who earned more than £30,000 a year, said that they got more than £30 a week in mortgage interest relief. It seems that that will be increased to about £35 a week. It is wrong that the rich have not been required

to give up a penny. How can the Government justify the rich retaining that money at the expense of the poor who have already suffered from cuts?
The instruments are wrong because administrative costs continue to soar while organisational bungling continues unabated. I hope that Conservative Members will agree that if a saving must be made it would be much more just to make it by limiting mortgage interest relief to the standard rate. That would save £160 million a year, which is three times and more than the savings that will be made from these niggardly, mean and nasty cuts. For those five reasons we reject the instruments. They are ill-advised, unjust and spiteful and the Government should withdraw them.

Mr. Andrew Bowden: I shall not repeat in any detail my views and objections to the housing benefit scheme because they are well known to the House. I deeply regret the way in which the scheme has operated during its first year and the Government's intentions to impose further alterations to the scheme in November 1984. It is painfully clear from the origins of the housing benefit scheme that it was put together quickly, and was botched. I has turned out to be complicated and difficult to administer. It was introduced as a result of the demands made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Department of Health and Social Security to find additional reductions in its budget.
The operation of this scheme during the past 12 months has been a disaster for local authorities, who in many cases have been thrown into turmoil. Above all, the scheme has caused real hardship and great stress and strain for a large number of those who are entitled to claim housing benefit.
I was delighted when my right hon. and hon. Friends decided to appoint a housing benefit review in February. I welcomed the words of the Minister when he said:
The review is to examine the structure and scope of the scheme to ensure that it is as simple as possible, and that help is concentrated on those most in need. The aim is to improve its administration by local authorities."—[Official Report, 14 February 1983; Vol 54, c. 215.]
The housing benefit review was then appointed under the chairmanship of Mr. Jeremy Rowe. On 11 July I gave evidence to that review. I wish to put it on record that I was most impressed by the open-minded and constructive approach of all its members. It was a most enlightening hour, which I hope will mutually benefit both future recipients and the review board in coming to its decisions. The board's briefing papers also impressed me.
I admit that I had initial misgivings and feared that the Minister might wish to restrict the approach of the review board, but clearly from the way in which it is working in practice—I am delighted to pay tribute to the Minister for this—that will not be the case. In the background briefing which the board sent to me and the other joint chairmen of the all-party parliamentary group for pensioners and which we were asked to consider in submitting our written and oral evidence, there were a number of phrases which showed clearly how wide the board's review was to be. It stated:
The review team would welcome evidence on all aspects of housing benefit and in particular the three broad areas set out in the terms of reference.
Those three areas included the scope of housing benefit, the structure of housing benefit and the administration of housing benefit. The explanatory notes to those headings


made it clear that the housing benefit review body had the widest possible chance to present a report of great significance for the Government's consideration.
In the light of the Department's decision, which was right, I was bitterly disappointed that the Department found it necessary to proceed with the changes and alterations in housing benefit in November. I do not go so far as to say, as Opposition Members have said, that that has undercut, destroyed or undermined the work of the review body, but it has not helped. I hope that if the review body in its report makes out a strong case for fairly drastic changes, even if they contradict the changes that have already been made by the Government, the Government will have the courage and determination to accept the report and reverse those changes. It would have been far better if the Government had delayed and put on ice their intentions for November. I regret that they have decided to proceed with the cuts which will affect many groups in society, not least more than 1 million pensioners.
The decision is also bound to create a great many additional problems for local authorities. I have no doubt that many local authorities were over the hump and beginning to see their way out of the tremendous tangles created by the scheme. In some cases those tangles were partially the responsibility and fault of local authorities, and in others, of the DHSS. Now that the worst is over they will, horrifyingly, be confronted with another batch of changes, which will inevitably create confusion and uncertainty within local authorities.
The changes will also confuse many claimants, bearing in mind the fact—I say this with great respect—that not many hon. Members understand the housing benefits scheme. I do not claim to have anything like a full understanding of it. Sometimes when I have spent hours poring over it during late night and early morning sittings in the House, I finish my study and think, "Perhaps I have a pretty good grip of it"; but then I wake up the next morning and realise that I still know very little about it. If it affects hon. Members in that way — the hon. Members in the Chamber this afternoon will have given much time and thought to it—what must it mean to the average claimant? It must be like trying to do Arabic maths with a dash of an antiquated or dead language thrown in. It is impossible. For the many claimants who are completely unable to cope with or understand what is going on, the new scheme will create stress and strain.
The standard housing benefit scheme is difficult enough to understand, but we take another enormous leap into complexity when we consider the housing benefit supplement. Many people have never heard of it. The take-up rate for ordinary supplementary pensions is low, with about 10 per cent. of pensioners who should claim it not doing so. On the figures provided by the Department, I estimate that the take-up rate for housing benefit supplement is, unfortunately, much higher than 10 per cent.—I suspect that the figure is much nearer 40 per cent. and could even be 50 per cent. As the House knows, the housing benefit supplement makes up the difference between standard housing benefit and what a recipient of the latter would have received had he been allowed to claim supplementary benefit. I just about understand that.
Pensioners who are entitled to claim the housing benefit supplement are in the disgraceful position of being shuffled backwards and forwards between local authority offices and DHSS offices. By the time some of them have been backwards and forwards two or three times they have

no idea whether they are coming or going, they are thoroughly fed up with the process and, in many cases, they decide not to proceed with their claims for the housing benefit supplement to which they are entitled.
During the past 15 years inflation has had a catastrophic effect upon those who receive small private occupational pensions, who live on incomes marginally above the state pension and supplementary pension rates. I must say bluntly to Opposition Members that they are more responsible for that than anyone else. I understand why the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) makes the best of the case that he has in front of him this afternoon—I regret that he has so many weapons to use—but it i s a bit much for him to tell the House that the Conservative Government give with one hand and take away with the other. He quoted some examples that are difficult to refute, but the most cruel method of giving with one hand and taking away with the other is inflation. It destroys the value of people's savings during their working lives. They prepared all their lives for retirement and, adding their basic state pensions, occupational pensions and the little savings they had in the banks, they believed that their retirement would be reasonably comfortable.
However, a series of policies imposed by Labour Governments completely undermined the financial positions of many pensioners. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, in one period of Socialist Government the inflation rate was well in excess of 100 per cent. What did that do to the small occupational pensioners, or to those who worked all their lives and, by the sweat of their brows, managed to save a little money? That was the cruel way of giving with one hand and taking away with the other.

Mrs. Beckett: None of us wishes to see high inflation Although we are all impressed by the passionate way in which the hon. Gentleman speaks about the sufferings of people who worked all their lives to build small savings, does he recognise that under the present Government as many and more people do not have, and never expect to have, an opportunity to build savings or security for their old age, or even their middle age, because of the policies of his Government?

Mr. Bowden: That is an incredible statement. It is comforting to know that the Opposition Front Bench spokesmen do not want high inflation. I am sure that when they came into office previously they did not want high inflation, but we still had it. In some years inflation was more than 25 per cent., and at one stage it was moving rapidly towards 30 per cent. a year. Should the Labour party take office again, which is unlikely, I have no doubt that exactly the same would happen. The hon. Lady is trying to tell the House that today fewer people have the opportunity to provide for their old age, but she should examine what is happening. A steadily increasing number of people are buying their properties and saving more money. More and more people understand that it is now worth saving money because the present inflation rate will not undermine the value of their savings. That should be warmly encouraged and I wish it to be greatly extended in the years ahead.

Ms. Clare Short: We all recognise that some pensioners who had savings—it was a minority — suffered from high inflation, especially before the introduction of granny bonds. But the hon. Gentleman should compare that position with the present.


Millions of people are unemployed and in my area poverty is rampant—one can see it on the streets in a way that one never could before. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) is right. Workers who are made redundant at the age of 50 or 55, who have no hope of working again and who must live on supplementary benefit, cannot begin to plan for their old age. The hon. Gentleman must face the truth that life for people who are preparing for their old age is worse now than at any time since the second world war.

Mr. Bowden: The hon. Lady is trying to extend the debate into a wide economic debate, and I dare not tread that path. However, I must make it clear to the hon. Lady that the seeds of many of today's economic problems were sown by Labour Governments. They allowed inflation to run rampant, we priced ourselves out of world markets and we had five people doing four people's work; those are the root problems with which the Conservative Government are surely and steadily dealing. Within a few years we shall have dealt with them completely. I must move away from that tack before I run the risk of being out of order.
Small occupational pensioners will be badly affected by the cuts in housing benefit. Quite rightly, the Conservative Party has agonised for many years, both in and out of government, on how best to help this section of the community. It was difficult, not to say impossible, to do this by increasing basic rates of the pension, and therefore it could only be done by looking for special ways and means. One way in which we have been able to help, and are still helping, although not to the same extent, was through the housing benefit scheme. This was giving some positive assistance to those on occupational pensions, whose pensions had been undermined by inflation and who were therefore entitled to a considerable increase in their income—through housing benefit.
Linked to that is a ridiculous position, about which we all know. A person may be in receipt of housing benefit, before the new regulations came into operation this year, of £6, £7 or £8 a week and perhaps more, but on the other hand could be paying £4, £5 or £6 a week in tax. Clearly, much more thought has to be given by my right hon. and hon. Friends to help that section of the retired—those living on small occupational pensions which, by and large, are not inflation-proof and are dropping in value, even I regret to say, to some extent under this Government. It is not as bad as it has been in the past, but such people are still not getting a fair return for a life's work.
There is evidence that those views are not mine alone but are held by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I draw the Minister's attention to early-day motion 893. This motion is so important that I shall read it out so that it will go into the record of my speech. The main sponsor is my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire) and the motion is supported by some distinguished right hon. and hon. Friends. It says:
That this House, noting that the aims of a unified and simplified housing benefit scheme have not to date been achieved, welcomes the independent review announced by the Government; and urges the adoption of a single taper unified housing benefit scheme, along the lines advocated by the London Housing Aid Centre (SHAC), to ensure: (a) the elimination of separate assessments by the Department of Health and Social Services and local authorities, (b) the ending of complexities such as housing benefit supplement, (c) the removal of inequities

in the treatment of those both in or out of work, (d) a drastic reduction in administrative costs and (e) a scheme which is easy for the general public to understand.
The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton), tragically is not in his place at the moment, but perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will convey my message to him. I hope that when he winds up the Under-Secretary will tell the House that the Government will look closely at that early-day motion in relation to the report that he will eventually receive from the housing benefits review body. Where the two dovetail — they will in many instances—I hope that the Government will give careful consideration to implementing the recommendations of that early-day motion.
Even at this stage—I fear that it is almost too late—could not my hon. Friend the Minister think again about the proposals for November? He is a fighter. Perhaps tomorrow morning, when he gets into his office, he might like to pick up his phone and call a senior Treasury Minister and say to him, "You will have to whistle for your £50 million. I am not going to implement those housing benefit cuts." There would be a gasp, a choking sound—I have no doubt about that——

Ms. Clare Short: Why tomorrow? Why not make him do it today?

Mr. Bowden: I want my hon. Friend to have the night to think it over. If he really pushed this, he could succeed. He should decide what his approach should be. If he decided that he would do this, I believe that he could still win, tough though the fight might be. I beg my hon. Friend to give this some thought. If he felt that he was able to do this, I should want him to prepare his case carefully. I know it is not easy to think about the implications if he decided to take such a course of action. However, he might still decide to pick up his phone and go through to the Treasury Minister and bluntly state the situation and the views that have been expressed in the House. I was going to say that if either my hon. Friend the Minister or the Under-Secretary can give me an assurance now—this is my answer to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short)—that that is what they will do, I should be delighted to tell them that I shall be in the Government Lobby tonight. If they cannot give me such an assurance, it will not be possible to do that.

Mr. John Fraser: The Minister opened this debate with all the cheerfulness of a workhouse master who, for reasons of economy, has to double up both as a pedagogue and a clown, but there is nothing in these regulations to be cheerful about. In my constituency and in my borough of Lambeth, they represent further poverty for those who need encouragement.
The Minister is right to tell us that the benefit changes do not affect certificated housing benefit—that is to say, the amount of people's social security benefit is not affected because their rent and rates are reimbursed in full. However, if they have had the misfortune to do what the Government are encouraging them to do—hard though it is—and have gone out to work on low wages, they are likely to be penalised. That is true of my constituency, where there is a great deal of poverty.
Let me give three examples. First, there is the reduction in the earnings disregard. It is true that it is only of 45p,


but it seems quite unnecessary to interfere with the programming of benefits by reducing the earnings disregard from £17·45 to £17 when it is bound to go up next April. That is one small example of how those who are earning will be poorer.
My second example is of the contribution from the nondependent child aged 16 or 17. If the child is on social security, he will not have to contribute as a non-dependant, as the Minister has said. In Lambeth, the forecast for unemployment for school leavers at the end of 1984 by the Manpower Services Commission youth group is for 60 per cent. unemployment among the 16 to 17-year-old school leavers. If one is lucky enough to obtain a job, often on low wages, he will be contributing notionally something to the rent of his parents. In practice, that does not happen in many households, and where the parents find their income cut because of a notional contribution by the earnings of a 16 or 17-year-old a great deal of tension arises and the cohesion of the family is ruptured.
If the child at first got a job after leaving school but has been made redundant after a year and is then in receipt not of social security benefit but of unemployment benefit, that child, as against the child who has never had a job, will have to make a contribution. As I understand the regulations—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—somebody who goes into a youth training scheme will be a non-dependent child receiving an allowance. He will have to make a contribution to his parents. That is one of the meanest ways of rupturing family unity and of depressing still further the poverty levels of those who are not on supplementary benefit but are very close to it. In my constituency, it will mean a reduction in living standards, and an increase in poverty and family tension. I ask the Minister to heed the advice given by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) to regulate such matters, and to fight with other Ministers against the depredations of the Treasury.
The figures for my constituency are not available, but I represent a borough where one man in four is out of a job. That is the measure of the poverty. I represent a borough in which 50,000 households out of a total population of only about 200,000 are in receipt of housing benefit. What possible contribution can it make to the cohesiveness and tranquillity of society to set about such mean cuts when the amount of public money going to the richer sections of society and to those able to buy their houses is being increased?
In answer to the Minister's question, I should point out that I am in favour of assistance for those buying their homes. I have never been opposed to that. The Labour party has said that there should be rough equality between those renting and those buying. Thus, I am not trying to drive any wedge between those two groups. However, it strikes me as mean and petty to make the poor poorer and the rich richer — yet that is the result of this Government's policies.
I turn to a point which I raised in an intervention concerning the new regulation 11(a). I may be wrong, but I believe that the immigration rules are being imported for the first time into rules that deal with social security. My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) has asked to be associated with my remarks. I urge the Minister to consider the effect of importing them on multiracial boroughs such as Southwark and Lambeth. If someone claiming housing benefit at the local authority housing office claims to be a student but seems to have a

foreign accent — perhaps African, West Indian, American or Australian—the local authority staff are bound to ask whether he is a foreign student with limited leave to be here. Thus, those who have permanent leave to be in the United Kingdom but who, for example, were born in Jamaica or West Africa or who have, as happens in inner city areas, adopted a sort of Caribbean accent from their peers will be questioned not only as to their level of poverty but as to their immigration status. It is inevitable that black applicants for housing benefit will come under more suspicion and are more likely to be questioned about their status than white applicants.
I ask the Minister to consider most seriously the consequences of those trying to run a social agency suddenly finding themselves involved in what may appear to be — even if it is not in practice — a form of immigration control. Perhaps such matters can be dealt with by the Home Office. But the moment that there is a breach in the wall of confidentiality as between those who administer social benefits and those who administer our immigration laws, the peace and tranquillity that has existed in race relations in housing will take a turn for the worse. For years we have been trying desperately to get town halls to understand the need for equal opportunities in housing. I urge the Minister to think again about the most retrograde step of importing immigration control into the administration of housing benefit.

Mr. John: Will there not be an ever greater furore than occurred when it was discovered that information from legal aid applications was being filtered out of the DHSS?

Mr. Fraser: That is bound to be so. Some of those who administer housing benefit will be faced with a crisis of conscience. It is a very difficult problem, because if such questions are not asked the officers of the council or the councillors themselves will be liable to surcharge for paying out a benefit to which the applicant is not entitled. An argument does not gain strength from repetition, so l simply urge the Minister to think again.
Will the Minister consider making the administration of this benefit less chaotic and speedier? Hardly a day goes by without my receiving a letter from a constituent saying that he applied for housing benefit not a month or three months ago, but 12 or 15 months ago. Often constituents in the private sector have applied for housing benefit but it has not yet been paid.
There is a statutory duty—which the Minister is not prepared and has no power to enforce—to respond to the application within 14 days. It is quite unacceptable that many of my constituents who are old, and who live in private accommodation, should be under pressure from housing associations or private landlords because their housing benefit has not been decided or paid out. I know that one of the problems is that, for example, in Lambeth a huge number of people apply for housing benefit. Of course, if Lambeth takes on more staff, the Minister's colleagues from the Department of the Environment will rate-cap the authority. Because Lambeth is penalised, it is fined £2·80 for every extra £1 it pays in wages to speed up the system. That will be even worse next year. Furthermore, the Government do not even fully reimburse the authority for the costs involved.
That is one constraint on taking on extra staff to administer housing benefits. It is true that mistakes have been made in Lambeth through adopting a computer


programme that was far too sophisticated and that did not have sufficient manual back-up. I do not say that the blame rests wholly with the Government, although it does when it comes to reducing the level of benefit. But the scheme is chaotic and it is wrong that members of the public should have their right to benefit denied, or at least delayed, for so long.
There are one or two contributions that the Government can make. First, they can exempt local authorities entirely from rate-capping penalties or any other constraints if they should take on extra staff or undertake expenditure on computer programmes or whatever it may be in order to administer the benefit quickly and efficiently. There should be a total exemption, because they are acting only as agents of the Government.
Secondly, the Government can stop tinkering with the scheme every six months. It is difficult enough to have to do a recalculation when a person's income changes. I believe that changes in the scheme should be kept to a maximum of once every 12 months. The Government should look a year ahead in a spirit of generosity so that benefits are not cut. They should at least minimise the amount of recalculation and clerical work that has to be done in town halls. I am very disappointed about the speed at which the benefit is administered in my borough, although that is not my only concern about the scheme.
I ask the Minister to reconsider those matters.

Mr. Charles Kennedy: The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) has spoken very knowledgeably about his constituency and the borough of Lambeth. Perhaps there could not be a greater geographical contrast than between his area and mine, in the Highlands of Scotland. Yet I am sure that we would both agree that the level of unemployment in Lambeth, at 25 per cent., is roughly similar to that in certain areas of my vast, spread-out rural constituency in the Highlands. That shows how the Government's general economic policy, which provides the backdrop for the shabby decisions on housing benefit, has had its effect throughout the country. The system of housing benefit has been subject to objections from persistent critics on the Government Benches as well as from Opposition Members, and it is, perhaps, sad that there has been little alteration or deviation from that policy.
There has been little willingness to take some of these considerations on board. Although a review is now taking place, there is, even at this late stage, an apparent unwillingness on the part of the Government to have any delay whatever, lest that be regarded as a climbdown or, perhaps more accurately, lest it loses the Government some money.
It is appropriate, therefore, that before we depart for the recess we debate this issue and remind the Government of the cross-party opposition—opposition at the least and, in certain circumstances, extreme scepticism—to some of the proposals that are being introduced. The Minister permitted me to intervene in his opening speech to query some figures. He spoke with evident satisfaction about the way in which £3 billion more in real terms was being spent across the board on social security benefits.

Ms. Clare Short: Because there are so many unemployed.

Mr. Kennedy: The hon. Lady makes an important point. To be fair to the Minister, he added that another £3·25 billion was being spent as a result of the rise in unemployment.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) and I find common ground in asking—as the Minister is pleased to be able to spend £3 billion extra on social security—if he would not have been even more delighted if double that amount could have been devoted to social security, instead of the extra money being frittered on unemployment benefits resulting from the economic policies which he has supported. In other words, of the £6·25 billion of which he was speaking, half has gone on increasing social security and half on providing insufficient support for people to do nothing when they would rather be working and helping to support themselves.
Housing benefit is an important subject which should receive our attention. Hon. Members who correspond with the Minister on constituency issues will agree that the hon. Gentleman is always reasonable and open-minded and that he goes to great lengths to explore the problems we raise with him. I appreciate that greatly. I find it difficult to set that approach alongside the inflexible approach which overcomes him when he reaches the Dispatch Box.
He slogged away manfully in defence of the organisational shambles which is housing benefit and he could say little to support the Government's proposals on housing benefit. As the Minister was speaking, I thought of the description that a distinguished journalist once gave of the present Foreign Secretary when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said that he was like a barrister who continued to plug away at the defence of his client after his client had changed his plea to guilty. There was an element of that in the Minister's speech today, because, against the facts—even against the arguments deployed by his hon. Friends — he manfully continued with a defence that almost everybody knows has become redundant.
Given that a review is taking place, I cannot understand the unwillingness of the Government to delay housing benefit cuts, or at least to agree to make such alterations in the autumn in line with what may be suggested when the review is completed. That goes to confirm our suspicion about the review. It must be inconsistent, at a practical level, to set an in-depth look at housing benefits alongside ad hoc decision-making about housing benefits. The two do not, with any sense of consistency, stand together.
Hon. Members will agree that the housing benefit system is too complex. Pensioners and others who throughout their lives have adhered to the ethic that there is something unprincipled, even immoral, about being in debt—people who have never been in debt but who, because of the fiasco of the housing benefits system, have found themselves, on paper, informed that they are massively in debt—have been driven to distraction, even to the point of becoming ill. That has been the effect on some who have come to discuss these problems at my surgery.
The complexities of the system are bound to affect the take-up rate, particularly of the elderly. It is complex enough even to put off those of us who are used to paperwork and may not be as intimidated as others are.
Leaving sympathy, charity, compassion and any other Treasury Bench voodoo terms on one side, the Minister


must agree that to have cut the earnings disregard from£18 to £17 in the last two years has, at the least, from the point of view of housing benefit, reduced work incentives for those in low-paid categories. The Minister argued that in the Budget the tax allowances were raised by more than the rate of inflation. Giving with one hand and taking with the other applies in this context, for almost half of that tax allowance has been reclaimed through the reductions in earnings disregard. As I say, leaving sympathy and compassion aside, it must be a fact, based on the philosophy of the Government, that that action will inhibit the incentive for people to take on employment. For that reason alone, the Government should re-examine the matter.
I thank the Minister for his comments about MSC and travel allowances, a subject on which I have corresponded with him, and I thank him for the help that he has given to me in relation to a constituent. What he said is good news. I regret that it is on the margin, so to speak, and that to a great extent it is mitigated by the intransigence that has been forced on him by his colleagues at the Elephant and Castle and the Treasury.
The Government should realise that when they play around with housing benefit and adjust figures and so on they are not just indulging in a mathematical exercise. For those on low incomes—for pensioners and the most disadvantaged sections of society—the Government are taking decisions that have a profound effect on people's lives.
I add my voice to the plea made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) to the Minister for Social Security. The Minister may want to make a phone call by the end of the debate or by tomorrow morning. I do not know to what extent the hon. Gentleman subscribes to British Telecom's view of "Buzby", which is to make someone happy with a phone call. If the hon. Gentleman made that phone call and took the decision we want, he would make happy those hon. Members who had taken an interest in this issue during several debates. More importantly, he would bring considerable comfort to those who stand to lose and suffer considerably from the effect of the measures that he wishes to pile through the House.
I ask the Minister of State to display conviction politics. I ask the hon. Gentleman not to head towards a firm decision, buttressed by his large majority in the Lobby, but to say that he is willing to listen to the review's findings in autumn. I hope that until then he will be willing to forgo the measures that he wishes to push through the House this evening. I hope that, at the very least, he will make back-dated decisions if the review comes up with worthy recommendations at variance with what has been decided so far. Information along those lines from the Treasury Bench will be welcomed. Unless those decisions are forthcoming, I am obliged to say on behalf of my hon. Friends in the Liberal party and my colleagues in the Social Democratic party that we shall join the official Opposition and, I imagine, several Conservative Members in opposing the instruments.

Ms. Clare Short: Hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have objected to the cuts in housing benefit on two grounds: first, because they are cuts in the income of some of the poorest people on low pay, including young workers; and, secondly, because the housing benefit scheme has been a complete

mess since its inception. It continues to be a mess. The mess may not be as bad as it was at the scheme's beginning, but it will become worse after these cuts. Because the scheme is such a mess, the Government have been forced to undertake to review the scheme. During that review, however, the Government are introducing further cuts. That is completely unacceptable and against the spirit of their undertaking to review the scheme. I agree with those hon. Members who have called on the Minister of State to look at the matter again, even at this late stage.
The Government are picking on the low paid with these changes and are worsening the poverty trap. The Government claim that they are anxious to eliminate the poverty trap, but it is no good their telling us in words that they believe in one thing, but by their actions proving that they do not. The change which is being deliberately implemented will worsen the poverty trap for the low paid.
I take exception to some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden), who has taken a courageous stand in opposing many previous housing benefit changes, and intends to do so again today. The pity is that there is only one of him. I very much disagreed with the hon. Gentleman when he talked as though we discuss benefits without reference to the Government's economic strategy. We well know that the Government have deliberately used unemployment as their anti-inflationary policy—there is no doubt about that. They have deliberately sought to reduce the income of people in work and to bring down wages to increase profits, because, they claim, that will lead to higher investment and greater efficiency. In practice, it does not work.
Part of the Government's strategy is to increase significantly the number of people living on low pay.

Mr. Andrew Bowden: At the risk of being ruled out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I ask whether the hon. Lady can give the average rate of inflation and the average rate of wage increases during the past 12 months.

Ms. Short: I do not have those figures in my head. I know that they are available, and I could easily obtain them. I assume that, if the hon. Member for Kemptown knew the figures, he would have given them rather than asked the question.

Mr. Bowden: During the past 12 months, the average rate of inflation has been 5·1 per cent. and the average rate of wage increase has been 7·4 per cent. That totally disproves what the hon. Lady said about wages having been forced below the rate of inflation.

Ms. Short: It does not totally disprove what I said. There is no doubt that the Government want to reduce pay levels. Shortly after 1979, they were more covert about that aspect but they now openly admit it in speeches about the economy and their objectives. All sorts of moves have been made to reduce the protection that was formerly available for the low paid.
The Government accept that if they reduce wages more people will be living on low pay. That is a necessary part of their strategy. They deliberately set out to cut supplementary benefit for young people and to cut the allowances paid under the youth training scheme. Indeed, they have destroyed the training value of YTS by making the reduction of pay levels of young people their top priority. That is no secret. It would be ridiculous for


anyone to pretend that it is. An open part of the Government's economic objectives is their aim to reduce wage levels and therefore to increase the number of people living on low pay. That fact cannot be contested.
It is no good Ministers or Conservative Members saying in economic debates, "Yes, of course, wage levels must be reduced," and then during debates about poverty, low pay and supplementary benefit pretending that they are sorry that people are living on low pay. It is not good enough to pretend that we should compartmentalise those factors, because they are all part of the Government's strategy. The Government are deliberately increasing the number of people on low pay. They are increasing also the number of unemployed, although on this occasion the cut will not hurt them. As the months grind by, there will constantly be cuts in housing benefit which will make poorer the people living on low pay.
A couple of days ago, we were talking about the fact that in 1984 poverty is visible when one walks around the streets. When I was a child, some people at school with me had the white, grey faces of poverty, thin clothes and poor shoes. Their skin showed that they were not living in decent conditions, obtaining good food, and so on. That sight disappeared during the 1960s and 1970s. It has disappeared in areas like mine. I represent the area in which I went to school, so I am talking about people who live in the same part of the country. All the children who went to school wore warm clothes and good shoes, and the whiteness of poverty disappeared. I see that poverty again in the streets of Birmingham. Two days ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) said to me that she saw that poverty in her part of the country.
This is not a matter of political debate or hoo-ha. We are talking about the fundamental quality of people's lives and whether children can grow up healthy in 1984. The consequences of the Government's economic and benefit policies is that all that poverty, suffering and ill-health will return in increasing proportions.
The other part of the Government's attack is on the 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds who are lucky enough to have a job, but, goodness me, there are few of them. One in every two under-18-year-olds is unemployed or temporarily on the youth training scheme. Our young people cannot leave school, expect to get a job and get started on their lives. The vast majority of them are unemployed. That is the new experience of Great post-1979 Tory Britain when we are told that the economy is being improved and refined.
Many of them are earning less than 16 and 17-year-olds used to earn. That is an open and deliberate part of Government policy. Ministers representing the Department of Employment frequently say that it is desirable that the wages paid to young people should be cut. They claim that it will increase the numbers in work. They have been busily cutting, but the numbers in work have been declining. That, however, is another argument. Those 16 and 17-year-olds who are lucky enough to have a job, although at lower wages than people of that age could expect five or 10 years ago, are the second group that is under attack. It is expected that in future they will pay more towards the family budget.
Our fear is that that will break up families. When 16 and 17-year-olds leave school and start to earn a living, it is a time of tension in all families. Life is changing, young

people are becoming adults and conflict within families is normal. It is worse in families with no money. It is an expensive time of life. Young people want to go out, dress up and do all sorts of things. There has been a number of similar benefit changes over the past few years and we fear that the present changes will increase tension within the family and cause 16 and 17-year-olds to leave home, go on the streets, come to live in London and engage in all the desperate things that are happening to young people. The current heroin epidemic must be connected with the conditions in which our young people are living and their lack of hope.
The Government undertook to do research so that we would know whether the changes were increasing the break-up of families. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether the research has been started, what progress has been made, whether there are any results, and whether we are right. I suspect that we are and that one of the effects of this mean change—this further attack on the young—is that more families are breaking up.
The Government claim that they cannot afford to look after the poor better. They claim constantly that public expenditure must be held down. That is another gross untruth, because in the Finance Bill massive tax concessions are being made to the rich as they have been year after year. It is part of the openly declared Government strategy of making Great Britain more unequal so that, they say, we will be greedier, more competitive and more enterprising. The Government say that that will make the market economy flourish and we will become more efficient. There is no evidence of that. The strategy is not working. Our output is lower than it was in 1979, but the Government deliberately gave massive tax handouts to the rich in the Finance Bill.
When we debate supplementary benefit, the Government tell us that there is no money. That is not true. There is money. They are giving it away to the rich because they believe that they are deserving. They are taking it away from the poor. There is no excuse for that, and the Government cannot pretend that there is. We compartmentalise policy discussions in the House and it is not good enough for them to pretend that there is not enough money for supplementary benefit for the poor when they can afford to give a great deal away to the rich.
There has been a massive increase in spending on defence and so-called law and order. There have been fantastic increases in police pay. Many of us think that it cannot be an accident to take from the poor, generate unemployment and then spend more on the forces of law and order because one is worried that the poor may become uppity and start to protest, so that a bigger stick is needed to hold them down with. There is money to build new prisons. The Government can find money when they want to for their political priorities. When they decide that the rich should be given money, to spend more on law and order, and to build prisons, there is plenty of money. When we ask for money for the poor, the Government suddenly do not have any. That excuse will not do, and we will not accept it.
The Government are aware, and have admitted, that the scheme is a mess. It has been a disgraceful chaos. We could all give examples from our own cities and constituencies of old people who run into arrears of rent for the first time. They cannot bear to be in arrears and they have therefore paid the rent and live on less than the


survival level measured by the benefits that we provide. They do not spend money on food, clothing and heating so that they do not run into debt.
I do not know whether Conservative Members are aware—I do not believe that they can be—that when people grind along, just about managing on their money, debt is serious and painful. If people just manage to cope for years and years on their money and then receive a letter saying that they owe £400 in back rent, it is an inconceivable amount of money for them to find. It breaks people up. More than one person has come to my advice bureau and told me that they are contemplating killing themselves. They have cried. It has not been just an empty threat. That is what has been happening to people in Great Britain in 1984 because the Government were mean-minded when they designed the housing benefit scheme. The Government tried to save a little money. They did not put enough into administration. The scheme was too complex. Instead of making the level of benefit sufficiently generous so that the administration would be simple, they held back. That is the fundamental problem.
There has been a mess everywhere. Many people have suffered badly. Those of us who attend to our constituency cases are aware of that and the Government have conceded that. They have admitted that they made a muck of the scheme. They have set up an inquiry to review the scheme to see whether it can be improved. That is welcome, but before the inquiry can report they impose further cuts which will create further chaos.
Last week I visited the housing benefit department of Birmingham. Initially the administration was very bad. It has become somewhat better, but I still receive letters from people who are owed masses of money but who are sent letters saying that they will be evicted.
The part of the scheme relating to the private sector is in difficulties now. The council sector is not as bad as it was. I asked whether Birmingham was worse than anywhere else in the country. The officials told me that it was not. I know about Birmingham through my own experience but, from what I was told, I know that we are talking about the whole country. Matters are a great deal better than they were, but there is still a backlog of about 10,000 cases. The officials told me that when the changes are introduced in November the scheme will be thrown back into chaos.
There is an inquiry to review the scheme because it is known to be chaotic. Local authorities are trying to cope. They have increased the staff who run it, but they have been given no undertaking by the Government that they will not be penalised by another aspect of Government policy—one, I presume, that we are not supposed to talk about today. The Government are trying to cut local government expenditure and the number of staff employed.
Will the Minister tell me how the extra staff who have been taken on in cities such as Birmingham to make the scheme run better will be treated for the purposes of the penalties being imposed upon local government staffing levels? That is an important question, and I should be grateful for an answer.
I was told in Birmingham last week that the scheme was working better but was still not perfect, and that it would become more chaotic in November. That is intolerable. The Government are undermining the value of the

undertaking that they gave to review the scheme. It is wrong to introduce further cuts and complications before the scheme has been reviewed and starts to work well.
The Government have a number of questions to answer. How is the review going and when shall we know the results? Is the money spent on mortgage tax relief being taken into account? Is the review dealing with the total housing subsidy paid out by the Government? If not, the Government should admit openly the bias and limitation of their policy and of the review.
I apologise for not being present to hear the Minister's opening remarks, but we were here until 3 am today and one has to do one's mail some time. I had intended only to listen to the debate, not to speak, but I was shocked to see so few Members in the Chamber.

Dr. Boyson: There are not many on the Opposition side either.

Ms. Short: It does not matter which side. People should know the truth. There should be more Members present to discuss a matter that is causing so much distress to so many of our constituents. Nevertheless, I sincerely apologise for missing the Minister's opening speech. That was perhaps balanced by the fact that I missed the bulk of the opening speech for the Opposition, too.
Having worked in Whitehall, I know that the appeal made to the Minister by the hon. Member for Kemptown was unrealistic. If the Minister sleeps on the matter and rings up the Treasury tomorrow morning with such a plea, nothing will happen. Indeed, once he sleeps on it he will not even be tempted to try.
There is only one thing for the Minister to do and I shall be happy to give way if he wishes to do it. He must stand up now and say that he agrees with our arguments—I am sure that in his heart he agrees with us—and that he will withdraw the regulations. We are told that he is a brave and courageous Minister. Let him show his courage by withdrawing the regulations. He will then be sacked, but he will have shown that he has guts. In any case, the Government's unpopularity is increasing so much that there will have to be a change. If the hon. Gentleman distances himself from the current Administration he may well improve his future political career in the Conservative party. I appeal to him to show that he is indeed such a fine man as the flattering descriptions claim, that he has courage, that he cares about the poor and that he intends to review and improve the housing benefit scheme.

Mrs. Margaret Beckett: I am tempted to pause to give the Minister time to respond to the touching appeal made to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), but it seems that he does not intend to do so. Although there have been many contributions, the debate has been interesting and useful. It must also have been a difficult one for the Minister and for his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.
No one has asked why the regulations have been introduced, because we all know the reason. The simple, straightforward and ultimately compelling reason for the Government was the wish to save money. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood rightly said, that is not because the Government are forced to save money in this area but because they have chosen to do so. Of the many


dishonest facets of the Government's behaviour, one of the most consistently dishonest is the claim that they are constantly forced to do unpleasant things because the money is not there. In fact, the money is there, but the Government deliberately choose to spend it for the benefit of those who are already wealthy and to penalise the most vulnerable and the worse off in our society.
The scheme shares many characteristics with the rest of the Government's record. First, it is an administrative shambles. No one has sought to pretend otherwise from the moment that it was introduced. The only argument has been whether it is a greater shambles in Birmingham than in London or in one authority compared with another and who is most at fault.
Secondly, in common with many other Government schemes, this scheme seems to consist of arbitrary, ad hoc rules designed to save money in various ways. The Government have cast about for any nit-picking measure that they can devise and any little regulation that can be slipped in to save a few hundred thousand pounds or a couple of million here or there because they have lost the battle with the Treasury about saving money on the scheme.
Thirdly, the scheme shifts the blame and the burden of housing support on to someone other than the Government. If there is any utterly consistent characteristic of the Government — this is true of the Prime Minister even more than of other Ministers—it is that whatever goes wrong is someone else's fault. It is pathetic to see Ministers casting around for someone to blame for the dozens of things that go wrong daily under their Administration. They never admit that anything is their fault or the result of their actions. They always insist that they are in no way to blame.
In this case, not only the blame but a substantial administrative burden has been shifted on to local authorities, apparently without any understanding of the need to provide extra assistance to the authorities so that they can cope with the additional burden. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood in asking for assurances from the Minsiter today that his colleagues at the Department of the Environment will not penalise local authorities for doing the Government's dirty work for them as there is no question at all of the authorities wishing to carry out such work.
The final characteristic that the scheme shares with so much else in the Government's record is that it deals with the poor more harshly and on a different basis from the rich. In his opening remarks the Minister sought to deal with two basic themes. He is too shrewd to attempt any major defence of a scheme that is recognised by every commentator and by anyone with experience of it as utterly hopeless. Instead, he tried to give the impression that the Government were being not merely generous but almost too generous to the poor, implying that the Government were so worried about their over-generosity that they felt compelled in the interests of the poor themselves to claw back some of the money through the cuts now proposed.
The Minister talked about the large earnings of people drawing housing benefit, suggesting that it was undesirable that people with above-average earnings could draw benefit and that the scale rates must be too generous.

Ministers must recognise, however, that a person on above-average earnings can be entitled to housing benefit only if he has to pay a substantially above-average rent. The scale rates applying to average rents come nowhere near average male incomes. The Minister's comment thus applies only if the rent is excessive.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said in opening, excessive rents themselves are largely the result of Government policy. In this case, the culprit is not the DHSS but the Department of the Environment and the Government's overall economic strategy of substantially cutting support for local councils. Here again, therefore, the Government are criticising people for things that are caused entirely by the Government's own policy.
I sympathise greatly with the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) about the difficulties and complexities of the scheme. All of us—including, no doubt, Ministers—who speak on these matters do so with some trepidation. The hon. Member for Kemptown, too, seemed to be emphasising what one might charitably describe as the Minister's mistake in implying that the scheme was over-generous and gave away resources unnecessarily.
The hon. Member for Kemptown referred to the housing benefit supplement. He remarked on its complexity, and said that it was difficult to justify. However, I think that he was aware of the only reason for the existence of that supplement, which is as follows. Let us take the case of a married couple with two children, paying rent of £15 a week—a sum which is by no means uncommon — and who, because of the Government's success in keeping down wages in many of the most low-paid occupations, are earning incomes which are below even the short-term rate of supplementary benefit and yet are still on the rebate side of the scheme. Although their earnings amount to less than the short-term rate of supplementary benefit, they could end up paying a proportion of their housing costs. It is in order to avoid that aspect of the poverty trap that the housing benefit supplement was introduced. That is a clear rebuttal of the Minister's suggestion that the scheme is too generous. It is so ungenerous that the Government are forced to complicate it by special measures to deal with such people.
In particular, the Minister sought to imply that the Government are being generous to those who are really poor. I am afraid that that, too, is not true. Many hon. Members have referred to what may be the worst aspect of the cuts — the increases in the non-dependant deductions which are applied to young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West and others highlighted the damaging effects that those cuts are likely to have, but I must return to the point again, because the contrast is so sharp, so significant, and so typical of everything that the Government do.
My hon. Friend quoted the Secretary of State's remarks on 6 February about the taxpayer's contribution. The Secretary of State said that "rather than the taxpayer, a non-dependant living in the house of someone claiming housing benefit should be expected to make a contribution to housing costs."
One could ask whether that is a valid argument, but if it is so vital that a young person with earnings who is living in someone else's household — probably that of his parents—should make a contribution, why is that only the case when the taxpayer's contribution takes the form


of housing benefit? Why is it not a matter of concern when the young person is living in a household where mortgage relief is applicable? In such a household, the income is likely to be substantially greater and the need substantially less.
Let us consider the situation of a typical family with a high income and a high mortgage and one or two non-dependent children living at home. We might stretch a point and think of those hypothetical children as, say, Mark and Carol. Those children may have substantial incomes of their own. However, if they choose to live in their parents' household, not a penny will be required from them to lift the taxpayer's burden. It is only those whose families are already disadvantaged, whose families meet the Government's somewhat harsh criteria for entitlement to housing benefit, who are expected to make such a contribution.
Finally, still with the Government's claim to generosity in mind, I should like to follow an example set by the Government. Ministers constantly look back to the record of the previous Labour Government. I propose to look further back, to the record of the Conservative Government which preceded them. There was then a scheme of housing support. I want to highlight two facets of that scheme. We all recognise that in such a scheme of housing support, wherever the level of needs allowance falls, there is additional help for those who fall below the level and less help for those above it. Looking back to 1972, we find that, as one would expect, the treatment of those whose income is below the needs allowance is the more generous. That seems to be logical, because they are the people in the greatest need.
Today, we have heard the Minister warmly commending what his Government have done for the poor. However, the previous situation has been reversed. Among those who are able to benefit from the scheme as it now stands, the less income they have, the more harshly they are treated. The taper is worse for those below the needs allowance than those above it. That is ridiculous, even by the Government's standards.
Secondly, I am interested in the record of previous Conservative Administrations in relation to the level at which all benefit is lost. Today, all entitlement to benefit will be lost in a family where the income is £34 above the level of the needs allowance for that family. Over 10 years ago, in 1972, all entitlement to benefit was not lost until such a family earned £50 above the needs allowance. Those are not figures in real terms. They are cash figures. The difference is even worse than it appears to be at first sight.
We hope and expect that not only the hon. Member for Kemptown, but all the hon. Members who signed the early-day motion will join us in the Lobby. In particular, we intend to vote against the regulations dealing with the taper on the present scheme.
We note that the Government are engaged on a housing review. We have expressed astonishment that, when such a fundamental review—as it has been termed—is being undertaken, the Government should press ahead with these changes. We regret the fact that the review is precluded from examining anything other than the housing benefit scheme, and is not considering the side of housing support which deals with owner-occupiers. Perhaps the Under-Secretary can tell us that he will reconsider that point.
Most of all we regret the fact that—being consistent in this respect at least—the Government, claiming to be

faced with the need to look for savings, have chosen once again to look to the poor rather than the rich. For that reason, if for no other, we shall vote against the regulations tonight.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): I have had an irresistible feeling this afternoon that I am watching an old and familiar film that I have already seen 10 times. Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and his comments on housing benefit do not have the same addictive qualities as Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music".
The fact that this has been a re-run of some old and tired arguments from the Opposition was reflected in the fact—acknowledged engagingly by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth——

Ms. Clare Short: Birmingham, Ladywood!

Mr. Newton: I am sorry. I was wrongly advised from on high. The new constituency includes the old constituency of Handsworth. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) engagingly acknowledged that the Opposition had had the greatest difficulty in sustaining the debate and wheeling in enough hon. Members to trot out the tired old arguments. However, that is a matter for the Opposition.
The debate has had three main elements. The major purpose of discussing both housing benefit and uprating in general is to enable us to discuss the uprating of housing benefit needs allowances, which has attracted relatively little controversy or comment. I entirely understand that—it is for the good and sufficient reason that it is being uprated in a perfectly normal way and will help many tenants because the needs allowances will be increased in line with the normal formula which reflects, among other things, changes in housing costs. It is right for me to remind the House of those beneficial changes as they have not received much attention except from my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security.
The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) raised a specific point arising from the main uprating of housing benefit needs allowances. He said that there was little point in reducing the earnings disregard, despite the fact that it arose from applying the normal formula, because, he said, it will only go up again in April. I am afraid that I was not present when he made that point. The reduction in the disregard is a sign of the Government's success in reducing the burden of income tax on the low paid, as it is the result of the rise in tax thresholds. Moreover, the changes occur in November so that the low paid who receive housing benefit have already benefited from lower taxation since April. Although I can see that it can be argued whether 45p merits a change, I should say that the original cause was the increase in tax allowances, the benefit of which is already felt by those who are affected.
The second major theme of the debate was the miscellaneous changes in the various measures. They were given relatively little emphasis, partly, I imagine, because they are favourable. Oppositions tend not to comment on what the Government are doing when the results are favourable. Some of the changes are detailed and complicated, but almost all are beneficial. They are being made constructively in response to the comments that the


Social Security Advisory Committee made earlier this year or in respeonse to specific suggestions that have been made by local authorities on how we can help them by simplifying and improving the scheme. I should like to emphasise that latter point to Opposition Members and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden).
Perhaps I should spell out in a little more detail the proposed change to apply the lower rate of non-dependant deduction to non-dependants who are sick or unemployed. Under the existing regulations, claimants must make a special application for the lower rate deduction, which cannot take effect earlier than in the week in which the claim is decided. The Social Security Advisory Committee recommended that the lower deduction should be backdated to the start of the claim if the conditions were satisfied then and that local authorities should make a positive inquiry into whether a non-dependant receives one of the qualifying benefits. We accepted both of those recommendations and this package contains the necessary amendments to give effect to them. The fact that claimants will no longer have to make separate applications for the lower deduction will make it easier for people to benefit. I am sure that both sides of the House welcome that.
We are making two other, albeit minor, changes that will benefit some claimants. When a non-dependant has just left school, he is normally unable to claim supplementary benefit in his own right until the end of his entitlement to child benefit—normally roughly at the end of the school holiday. If, however, he works during that time, he will be treated as a non-dependant for housing benefit purposes and may be expected to contribute towards the family's housing costs. In certain circumstances such as, for example, sickness or unpaid holidays, the fact that a non-dependant cannot claim supplementary benefit could result in his not receiving any income from which to make that contribution. That is clearly undesirable. To avoid such difficulties, we are providing for non-dependant deductions to be waived when a school leaver cannot claim supplementary benefit.

Ms. Clare Short: Big deal.

Mr. Newton: It is not a big deal in the great sweep of things, but it could be quite important to claimants who are expected to make a contribution from low income. The fact that we have taken the trouble to examine and tackle that problem makes pretty fair nonsense of much of what the hon. Lady said in her speech.

Ms. Short: Will the Minister admit that young people used to be entitled to benefit immediately after they left school and that the present Government took away that entitlement, thus creating the anomaly that he now claims great credit for correcting?

Mr. Newton: The cause of the anomaly is a good deal more complicated than that. Of course I acknowledge that the Government changed supplementary benefit entitlement, and I am prepared to defend it, if necessary, as it corresponds with another aspect of the reality of the way in which most people operate on leaving school. The fact remains that we have recognised the problem and tackled it.
We are amending the housing benefit regulations so that, if certificated housing benefit is in payment for two

homes—that can happen in limited circumstances—a deduction for amenities that are included in the rent, such as heating, will be made only in respect of the dwelling in which the claimant lives. There is a limit to what can be regarded as available for fuel costs in the supplementary benefit scale of rates, and the amendment will help to ensure that claimants are not expected to pay more than is reasonable. I acknowledge that those changes are small but I hope that the House will welcome them.
The hon. Member for Norwood mentioned overseas students. Local authorities will have to make additional inquiries to establish which students are affected. That should be fairly straightforward in the majority of cases, but it is a sensitive matter. I accept that the hon. Gentleman has raised a serious point and we shall issue detailed guidance to authorities.
I need say little else about the miscellaneous changes except that I am fascinated and encouraged that nobody except my hon. Friend the Minister and the hon. Member for Oldham, West has said one word throughout the debate about the proposed regulation to deal with Sheffield council's attempted fiddled rent scheme to raise the amount of money that the city takes from housing benefit. I say that I am encouraged because——

Mr. Roland Boyes: The Minister should withdraw the word "fiddled".

Mr. Newton: If the hon. Gentleman prefers the expression "ripped off' to "fiddled", perhaps we can happily agree.

Mr. John Fraser: It could be called tax planning.

Mr. Newton: I was encouraged by the fact that the Opposition have become realistic enough not to attempt to defend Sheffield city council's proposition. It is extraordinary to suggest providing the minimum service at maximum cost, all at someone else's expense. That might be classified the ultimate Socialist scheme.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: I remind the Minister that yesterday the Secretary of State for the Environment called Sheffield the model of efficiency and said that it was an example to all other authorities. Obviously the Under-Secretary should talk to his right hon. Friend.

Mr. Newton: I do not imagine that my right hon. Friend, when he said that, had it in mind that Sheffield proposed to charge its poorest tenants the most rent——

Ms. Clare Short: To get the money back from the Government.

Mr. Newton: Yes.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I like the idea of that.

Mr. Newton: It is a scheme to charge the poorest tenants the highest rent to attract additional subsidy from the Government. It is disguising that by providing a minuscule service which seems to consist primarily of easing doors after decoration. The council proposes to charge £5 a week to other tenants for that service and make them a repairs allowance of £5 a week. If Sheffield city council is spending an average of £5 a week to ease the doors of all of its tenants' properties after redecoration, we do not have to look far to see where it can make further economies.

Mrs. Beckett: Would it not be simpler for the Minister to admit that, as so often happens with the Government,


the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and that the Secretary of State for the Environment does not know what the DHSS is doing from one day to the next?

Mr. Newton: The Government have a consistent local government policy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is anxious to restrain increases in local authority expenditure. The DHSS is concerned that local authority expenditure is not sustained at a high level at the expense of the taxpayer and of other social security claimants. That would happen if Sheffield was allowed to get away with its proposals.
The main thrust of the debate is in relation to old ground—the spring package following the autumn statement of major changes in the housing benefit scheme. There is genuine merit in the overall strategy underlying housing benefit, despite the undoubted problems with some aspects of its introduction. I believe that that view is supported on both sides of the House.
The strategy replaced supplementary benefit help with rent and rates, as well as local authority rebates and allowances, with a single scheme administered by local authorities. In doing so, it has largely resolved the so-called "better off' problem—that is to say, the problem of claimants not knowing whether they would be better off on supplementary benefit or with rebates.
I respect the sincerity of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) and I have noted his views. He implied that, under the housing benefit scheme, there had been a sudden need for beneficiaries to scurry between the DHSS and local authorities. It is inaccurate to say that the problems that they face have become increasingly complex.
The complexities of the "better off' problem under the previous scheme, when the two detailed systems of support, and of housing costs ran side by side, were at least as great as under the present scheme. In my view, the previous scheme was more complex.
The number of claimants, the amount of housing benefit and, to some extent, the increased difficulties of administration, are greater than anticipated. It is easier now to establish entitlement to housing cost, and it is likely that the take-up of benefits has increased, especially among pensioners who were so confused that they did not know their entitlement.

Ms. Clare Short: As I said in my speech, last week I visited the offices where the scheme is administered in Birmingham. Mr. McGrath, who is running the scheme, said that one of the merits claimed for the scheme was that it would deal with the "better off' problem. It does not do so. In practice, it is so complex that people still cannot work out whether they will be better off.

Mr. Newton: I accept that the new scheme has not entirely resolved the "better off' problem. That is why the housing benefit review was set up. We intend and expect that the review will deal with the problem. The problems encountered by the existing scheme should not be exaggerated as if the previous one had operated perfectly and avoided the difficulties that we are describing.

Mr. Andrew Bowden: I understand my hon. Friend, and I accept that the previous scheme was far from perfect. The difference is that the previous scheme was clear cut. Rebates were dealt with by local authorities, and rent

entitlement was dealt with entirely by the DHSS. Now, the scheme works well if one is entitled only to standard housing benefit and difficulties arise when one is entitled to housing benefit supplement. Pensioners and others must go to the local authority office and to the DHSS office to sort out one specific entitlement in housing.

Mr. Newton: I understand my hon. Friend's point. Housing benefit supplement is one of the most difficult areas of the scheme. That is one of the reasons why we have asked Mr. Rowe to conduct the review, and why my hon. Friend is looking into these matters.
I must emphasise that we have made a vigorous effort to overcome one aspect of the housing benefit supplement problem. We have issued a formula to local authorities which should help them to identify readily most of the pensioners who are entitled to housing benefit supplement. I cannot undertake that all local authorities will use the formula or apply it in the way that we should like, but we have sought to tackle the problem. I hope that what emerges from the review will enable the problem to be tackled more effectively.
The hon. Member for Norwood asked some detailed questions. He gave the impression, when referring to non-dependant deduction for 16 to 17-year-olds, that the youngsters on the youth training scheme would be expected to contribute, where unemployed youngsters and those on supplementary benefit would not. That is not the case. The regulations continue the exemption of young people on YTS. They are not expected to make the contributions payable by other 16 to 17-year-olds.
Several general points were raised by the hon. Member for Oldham, West and by other hon. Members. We heard much about the poverty trap, in terms that seemed to overlook entirely the fact that the shallower the tapers for housing benefit — that is to say, the further up the income scale that housing benefit is allowed — the broader will be the poverty trap. More people will be subject to deductions over and above the tax threshold. The hon. Gentleman was really saying that we have slightly deepened the poverty trap for some groups, but have narrowed it. It is a matter of judgment where to strike the balance between narrowing the poverty trap and making it shallower or deeper, but it is misleading to suggest that we have increased the poverty trap without recognising the distinction between its width and its depth. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that at least.
I am tempted to say that the logic of what the hon. Members for Oldham, West, for Ladywood, and others say about the poverty trap would reduce those receiving housing benefit to nil. The quickest and easiest way of eliminating the poverty trap is to eliminate the benefits that give rise to it—the means-tested benefits that rise a long way up the income scale. If Opposition Members are to be serious contributors to the debates on social security, they must think more seriously about the poverty trap than they seem to have done this evening.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West, and to some extent the hon. Member for Ladywood, spoke in terms of a vendetta against 16 to 17-year-olds. Let us be clear that we are talking about 16 to 17-year-olds in work. Young men earn an average wage of £67 a week, and young women and average of £61 a week. We expect them to contribute only £3·30 a week to household costs, including


rates. If that is construed as a vendetta against young people, I think that Opposition Members are living in a dream world.

Mr. Meacher: Rent rebate families are basically poor families. If it is not right that the non-dependant deductions should apply to better-off families who are getting tax relief on mortgages, why should not the taxpayer be relieved on the mortgage interest burden?

Mr. Newton: I should like to ask the hon. Member for Oldham, West a question or two. I do not know whether that is in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
We have heard much about mortgages this afternoon. We now have it firmly on the record that it is official Opposition policy, as I understand it, to restrict mortgage interest relief to the basic rate of tax. That will be of interest to a number of people. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will confirm my understanding of his remarks this afternoon. But let us now go beyond that. The hon. Gentleman is now suggesting that he intends to reduce mortgage interest relief for families on the basic rate of tax according to their children's income. Is that or is that not the policy of the Opposition?

Mr. Meacher: No, it is not. It is perfectly clear that it is not. The argument was that, if it is right for non-dependant deductions to be made in respect of poor families who are on a rent rebate — that is the Government's policy, not our policy — why is it not right for it also to be done for richer families getting mortgage interest relief? That is a problem for the Government because it is their policy, not ours.

Mr. Newton: In that case, may we take it that the Opposition's policy is to pay housing benefit regardless of the income coming in to households, in other words, to pay subsidies for rent regardless of the ability of people living in the household to contribute to those costs? If so, not only would the benefit bill be increased beyond what the Government think it should be, but, in what I would regard as a profligate and irresponsible way, that would consume money that could be better used for beneficiaries who need additional benefit and for whom we are not able to do sufficient.

Ms. Clare Short: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Newton: I shall not give way again. The House is anxious to bring the debate to a conclusion.

Ms. Short: What about research?

Mr. Newton: We are looking at that matter in the wider context of a review of benefits for children and young people. The hon. Lady will understand that it is a difficult area. It would require long-term and complex research. It is in that broader context that we are considering the matter.
That brings me to the point on which I should like to end because in a way it reflects the attitude of the Opposition throughout the debate. We have heard a great deal about losers and problems, but we have heard nothing about the million pensioners who gained an average of £1 a week when housing benefit was introduced. We have heard nothing about the million families who will gain first this November and then next April from the real increase in the children's needs allowances under the housing

benefit scheme. Above all, we have heard nothing that reflects the fact that the vast majority of the least well off tenants on housing benefit, whether pensioners or others, are left untouched by the package, which does no more than make a modest and sensible economy in the social security budget from those on housing benefit who are among the better off of those who receive social security benefits. It is a reasonable, sensible and balanced policy. I have no doubt that it will have the support of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Lobby.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Housing Benefits (Increase of Needs Allowances) Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.

Motion made—[Mr. Meacher]—and Question put,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing Benefits Amendment (No. 3) Regulations 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 940), dated 3rd July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th July, be annulled: —

The House divided: Ayes 170, Noes 271.

Division No. 417]
[7.25 pm


AYES


Abse, Leo
Eadie, Alex


Adams, Allen (Paisley N)
Eastham, Ken


Alton, David
Edwards, Bob (W'h'mpt'n SE)


Anderson, Donald
Ellis, Raymond


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Evans, John (St. Helens N)


Ashdown, Paddy
Fatchett, Derek


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Faulds, Andrew


Ashton, Joe
Flannery, Martin


Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)
Forrester, John


Barnett, Guy
Foster, Derek


Beckett, Mrs Margaret
Foulkes, George


Beith, A. J.
Fraser, J. (Norwood)


Bermingham, Gerald
Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald


Bidwell, Sydney
Freud, Clement


Blair, Anthony
George, Bruce


Bowden, A. (Brighton K'to'n)
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John


Boyes, Roland
Godman, Dr Norman


Bray, Dr Jeremy
Golding, John


Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)
Gould, Bryan


Brown, R. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne N)
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)
Hardy, Peter


Bruce, Malcolm
Harman, Ms Harriet


Buchan, Norman
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
Healey, Rt Hon Denis


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Heffer, Eric S.


Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)
Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)


Cartwright, John
Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Hoyle, Douglas


Clarke, Thomas
Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)


Clay, Robert
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)


Cohen, Harry
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)


Coleman, Donald
John, Brynmor


Conlan, Bernard
Johnston, Russell


Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)
Jones, Barry (Alyn &amp; Deeside)


Corbett, Robin
Kennedy, Charles


Cowans, Harry
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Kirkwood, Archy


Craigen, J. M.
Lamond, James


Crowther, Stan
Leadbitter, Ted


Cunliffe, Lawrence
Leighton, Ronald


Cunningham, Dr John
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Dalyell, Tarn
Lewis, Terence (Worsley)


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)
Litherland, Robert


Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)
Lofthouse, Geoffrey


Deakins, Eric
Loyden, Edward


Dewar, Donald
McCartney, Hugh


Dixon, Donald
McCrea, Rev William


Dormand, Jack
McDonald, Dr Oonagh


Dubs, Alfred
McKay, Allen (Penistone)


Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.
McKelvey, William






Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)


McTaggart, Robert
Rowlands, Ted


McWilliam, John
Sedgemore, Brian


Madden, Max
Sheerman, Barry


Marek, Dr John
Sheldon, Rt Hon R.


Marshall, David (Shettleston)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Short, Ms Clare(Ladywood)


Maxton, John
Short, Mrs R.(W'hampt'n NE)


Maynard, Miss Joan
Silkin, Rt Hon J.


Meacher, Michael
Smith, C.(Isl'ton S &amp; F'bury)


Meadowcroft, Michael
Snape, Peter


Mikardo, Ian
Soley, Clive


Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Spearing, Nigel


Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)


Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)
Strang, Gavin


Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
Straw, Jack


Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)


Nellist, David
Thorne, Stan (Preston)


Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Tinn, James


O'Brien, William
Torney, Tom


Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Warden, Gareth (Gower)


Park, George
Wareing, Robert


Parry, Robert
Weetch, Ken


Patchett, Terry
Welsh, Michael


Pavitt, Laurie
White, James


Pike, Peter
Wilson, Gordon


Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Winnick, David


Prescott, John
Woodall, Alec


Redmond, M.
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)
Young, David (Bolton SE)


Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)



Robertson, George
Tellers for the Ayes:


Rogers, Allan
Mr. Frank Haynes and Mr. James Hamilton.


Rooker, J. W.





NOES


Aitken, Jonathan
Forth, Eric


Alexander, Richard
Fox, Marcus


Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Franks, Cecil


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Fraser, Peter (Angus East)


Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.
Freeman, Roger


Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)
Fry, Peter


Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)
Gale, Roger


Benyon, William
Galley, Roy


Berry, Sir Anthony
Gardiner, George (Reigate)


Biggs-Davison, Sir John
Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Glyn, Dr Alan


Bottomley, Peter
Goodhart, Sir Philip


Bottomley, Mrs Virginia
Goodlad, Alastair


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Gow, Ian


Boyson, Dr Rhodes
Grant, Sir Anthony


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Greenway, Harry


Brittan, Rt Hon Leon
Gregory, Conal


Brooke, Hon Peter
Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)


Brown, M. (Brigg &amp; Cl'thpes)
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)


Browne, John
Grist, Ian


Bruinvels, Peter
Ground, Patrick


Bryan, Sir Paul
Grylls, Michael


Buck, Sir Antony
Gummer, John Selwyn


Butcher, John
Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)


Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (W'ton S)
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)


Chapman, Sydney
Hanley, Jeremy


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Hannam, John


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Hargreaves, Kenneth


Clegg, Sir Walter
Harris, David


Colvin, Michael
Harvey, Robert


Coombs, Simon
Haselhurst, Alan


Cope, John
Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael


Couchman, James
Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)


Crouch, David
Hawksley, Warren


Dorrell, Stephen
Hayhoe, Barney


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Haynes, Frank


Dykes, Hugh
Hayward, Robert


Farr, Sir John
Heathcoat-Amory, David


Favell, Anthony
Heddle, John


Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Hickmet, Richard


Fletcher, Alexander
Hicks, Robert


Fookes, Miss Janet
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.


Forman, Nigel
Hind, Kenneth


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Hirst, Michael





Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)
Newton, Tony


Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)
Nicholls, Patrick


Holt, Richard
Normanton, Tom


Hooson, Tom
Norris, Steven


Hordern, Peter
Onslow, Cranley


Howard, Michael
Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.


Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Ottaway, Richard


Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)
Page, Sir John (Harrow W)


Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)
Page, Richard (Herts SW)


Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Parris, Matthew


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Patten, John (Oxford)


Hunter, Andrew
Pawsey, James


Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth


Jackson, Robert
Pollock, Alexander


Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Powell, William (Corby)


Jessel, Toby
Powley, John


Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Jones, Robert (W Herts)
Price, Sir David


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Proctor, K. Harvey


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Raffan, Keith


Kershaw, Sir Anthony
Rathbone, Tim


Kilfedder, James A.
Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)


King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Renton, Tim


King, Rt Hon Tom
Rhodes James, Robert


Knight, Gregory (Derby N)
Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas


Knight, Mrs Jill (Edgbaston)
Ftidsdale, Sir Julian


Knowles, Michael
Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)


Knox, David
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Lang, Ian
Floe, Mrs Marion


Lawler, Geoffrey
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Lawrence, Ivan
Rost, Peter


Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel
Rowe, Andrew


Lee, John (Pendle)
Ryder, Richard


Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.


Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)
Sayeed, Jonathan


Lightbown, David
Scott, Nicholas


Lilley, Peter
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')


Lloyd, Ian (Havant)
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Lord, Michael
Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)


Luce, Richard
Silvester, Fred


McCrindle, Robert
Sims, Roger


McCurley, Mrs Anna
Skeet, T. H. H.


Macfarlane, Neil
Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)


MacGregor, John
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)


MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)
Soames, Hon Nicholas


MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)
Spencer, Derek


Maclean, David John
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)


McNair-Wilson, P. (New F'st)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)


McQuarrie, Albert
Squire, Robin


Madel, David
Stanley, John


Major, John
Steen, Anthony


Malone, Gerald
Stern, Michael


Maples, John
Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)


Marland, Paul
Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)


Marlow, Antony
Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)


Mates, Michael
Stokes, John


Mather, Carol
Stradling Thomas, J.


Maude, Hon Francis
Sumberg, David


Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Tapsell, Peter


Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Taylor, John (Solihull)


Mayhew, Sir Patrick
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)


Mellor, David
Temple-Morris, Peter


Merchant, Piers
Thompson, Donald (Calder V)


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)


Miller, Hal (B'grove)
Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)


Mills, lain (Meriden)
Thornton, Malcolm


Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)
Thurnham, Peter


Miscampbell, Norman
Townend, John (Bridlington)


Mitchell, David (NW Hants)
Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)


Moate, Roger
Tracey, Richard


Montgomery, Fergus
Trippier, David


Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)
Trotter, Neville


Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)
Twinn, Dr Ian


Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)
van Straubenzee, Sir W.


Murphy, Christopher
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Needham, Richard
Viggers, Peter


Nelson, Anthony
Waddington, David






Wakeham, Rt Hon John
Whitfield, John


Waldegrave, Mon William
Whitney, Raymond


Walden, George
Wiggin, Jerry


Wall, Sir Patrick
Winterton, Nicholas


Waller, Gary
Wolfson, Mark


Walters, Dennis
Wood, Timothy


Ward, John
Yeo, Tim


Wardle, C. (Bexhill)
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Warren, Kenneth
Younger, Rt Hon George


Watson, John



Watts, John
Tellers for the Noes:


Wells, Bowen (Hertford)
Mr. Michael Neubert and Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.


Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)



Wheeler, John

Question accordingly negatived.

Social Security

The Minister for Social Security (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): I beg to move,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
I hope that it will be for the convenience of the House if at the same time we deal with the following motions:
That the draft Supplementary Benefit Uprating and Additional Requirements Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That the draft Child Benefit (Up-Rating) Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That the draft Family Income Supplements (Computation) Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That the draft Pensioners' Lump Sum Payments Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Amendment Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Supplementary Benefit (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulation 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 938), dated 3rd July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th July, be annulled.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Family Income Supplements (General) Amendment Regulations 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 979), dated 11th July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 13 July, be annulled.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying the Child Benefit (General) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations (S.I., 1984, No. 939), dated 3rd July 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th July, be annulled.
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Child Benefit (Residence and Persons Abroad) Amendment Regulations 1984 (S.I., 1984, No. 875), dated 26th June 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 29th June, be annulled.
The instruments are accompanied by a report from the Government Actuary on the effects of the uprating on the national insurance fund, by a statement on the uprating of mobility allowance, and by the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee, including the Secretary of State's reply. The effect of this package of instruments is to put into effect the uprating of benefits which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 18 June, to provide for payment of the £10 Christmas bonus, and to make certain other changes.
I do not wish to repeat the main details of the changes in the individual benefits. I propose to confine myself to the main features of the uprating and to the more important changes.
On the uprating, the majority of benefits will be increased by 5·1 per cent. in line with the movement in the retail price index to May, while the supplementary benefit scale rates will be increased by 4·7 per cent. in line with the RPI, excluding housing. That is the method that has been followed in previous years.
As in 1983, the uprating is based on the historic movement in prices in the 12 months to May this year. The Government are convinced that the historic method is the best way of determining benefit rates. It may take some of the excitement out of the uprating announcement, but it means that pensioners can watch the movement of the RPI and work out what increase they will be getting in November.

Mr. Jeff Rooker: I am sorry to interrupt the Minister so soon. Will not the pensioners


also think that it is not without significance that, two years running, May will have had the lowest RPI of any of the 12 months? Will they not see a conspiracy in the way that the building societies drop the mortgage rate just at the right time to affect the May RPI only to raise it after the uprating has been announced?

Dr. Boyson: It is always a pleasure to give way to the hon. Gentleman to cleanse him of the conspiracy theory which could poison his temperament unless we help to release the demon from inside him.
It is as well to remember that the forecast method was adopted by a previous Labour Government only to save them spending the equivalent of £1 billion on an uprating on the historic method. But in five years out of seven the forecast was wrong. The hon. Gentleman would not bet on horses if he were wrong five times out of seven. In the long run, people cannot lose by the present method because, whatever the increase from May to May, it is paid to them in the following November. In the long run, there can be no loss at all attached to the historic method. It is much more likely to be correct than the method used by the hon. Gentleman's Government.
In total, the uprating will add over £1·5 billion to the social security budget in a full year, taking it to £39 billion —almost one third of all public spending. That is £700 per man, woman and child in Britain. In real terms, indexed for inflation, we are spending 27 per cent. more on social security than was the Labour Government in 1979.
If Labour Members require, I can give figures to show that after allowing for the increase of unemployment and for the increase of 650,000 pensioners, there is still between £3 billion and £3·5 billion more in real terms being spent than when the Labour Government left office in 1979. So, whatever we are doing, we are certainly not eating humble pie as a result of the money that we are spending on social security.

Ms. Clare Short: The Minister makes a fascinating and important point, and I can instantly think of some reason why that might be so. For example, we know that there has been a massive increase in rents. Therefore, the cost of housing benefit has gone up. We also know that there has been an increase in low pay, so presumably entitlement to family income supplement has gone up. Can the hon. Gentleman give us any more details, or will he undertake to give on another occasion an analysis of exactly where the £3·5 billion is being spent?

Dr. Boyson: Nothing would delight me more than to address Labour Members on this subject. Perhaps they would tear up their party cards afterwards. By sheer chance, I have some figures with me. Between November 1978 and November 1984, the increase in the RPI is expected to be 76·4 per cent. During the same period, family income supplement will have gone up by 119 per cent., one-parent benefit will have gone up by 112·5 per cent., mobility allowance will have gone up by 100 per cent. and the retirement pension, widow's pension and the attendance allowance will have gone up by between 83 and 83·7 per cent. I could list all the figures and I am sure that it would give great pleasure to hon. Members on both sides of the House to see how well we have done under difficult circumstances.

Mr. Rooker: What about the death grant?

Dr. Boyson: People are living longer. They see the satisfaction of living under a Conservative Government. I wish the hon. Member for Perry Barr long life.

Mr. Brynmor John: As the hon. Gentleman took well over two months to reply to a letter in which I outlined the case of a lady in my constituency who had to bury six of her family on the present death grant, does he not realise that his flippancy and stupidity are beyond measure? We were told in 1979 that the death grant was to be re-examined, and an announcement was expected at Christmas 1980. That announcement has still not been made. Will the hon. Gentleman treat more seriously a subject which causes great worry to many people?

Dr. Boyson: I do take it seriously and I receive hundreds of letters on the subject. The Labour Government were in power for five years and did nothing about the death grant. I do not intend to eat humble pie on that. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) held my post, he circulated a consultation document. The Labour Government never did that. The only reason why nothing was done was that there was no agreement in the responses to that consultation paper. We accept that there is a problem and we know that it causes concern. However, we will not bow to the Labour party.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: The Minister refers to his desire to consult about the death grant. It is interesting to compare that attitude with the Government's approach on other matters, such as the GCHQ affair, when they refused to consult. Is it not time that the Government decided to increase the death grant in the interests of all those who are suffering because it is so low?

Dr. Boyson: The Labour Government did nothing to change the basis of social security. They tinkered with bits and pieces, but did nothing radical. We have set up four surveys—on children and young persons, supplementary benefits, pensions and the age of retirement, and housing benefit. When we receive those reports, we shall make our decisions. The Government may be attacked for giving too much consideration to various matters, but we have asked the survey teams to report by the end of the year. I do not doubt the good intentions of the Labour party; I do not doubt anyone's good intentions—there are no demons inside me. However, we do not bow to the Labour party, because the Labour Government did nothing.

Mr. John: This is a serious matter.

Dr. Boyson: I know that it is a serious matter and I will give the hon. Gentleman some serious figures.
By November this year, pensions will have increased by 83·6 per cent. since the Government came to office, against an expected rise in prices of 76·4 per cent. At the same time, more people are benefiting from the build-up of the earnings-related pension scheme. The maximum earnings-related addition for a newly retired person is over £15 a week.

Ms. Clare Short: That was the Labour Government.

Dr. Boyson: Yes. When Labour do something worthwhile, we agree with it. Labour Governments are bound, even by accident, to get things right occasionally, and we give them credit when they do.
I remind hon. Members that the last Labour Government presided over inflation of 112·6 per cent.


between 1974 and 1979. Inflation under this Government, over a similar period, has been 63 per cent. We do not like that, but it is only just over half the rate under Labour. Runaway inflation is a disaster for pensioners, anyone with savings or those living on fixed incomes. The improvement in controlling price rises is the Government's most important gift to pensioners.

Mr. John: The Minister refers to inflation between 1974 and 1979, but will he recall that pensions were 20 per cent. higher in real terms in 1979 than they were in 1974?

Dr. Boyson: I will check the hon. Gentleman's figures tomorrow, but I do not doubt that he is correct. However, let us remember that all those who saved in piggy banks, building societies or the Post Office savings bank lost more than half their money under the Labour Government. I know the working class as well as any Labour Member, having been born into it. People saved all their lives so that they could have a decent retirement and their savings were destroyed. The people who suffer from inflation are not the rich, but the poor. It always amazes me that Labour Members do not understand that. Poor people do not invest in foreign stamps, gold or land; they rely on their savings. Inflation destroys the pride of the poor and hardly touches the rich.
Apart from the benefits that we are pledged to protect, we will this year maintain the value of all the main benefits, including family income supplement, mobility allowance and the supplementary benefit scale rates. Child benefit will be maintained at its highest ever level. The retirement pensions earning rule will again be increased by more than inflation — from £65 to £70 a week. Following last year's increase of 14 per cent., that underlines our intention to abolish the limit when resources permit.
I wish to deal with two issues in depth—"creep" and the scale margin.

Mr. Rooker: What is "creep"?

Dr. Boyson: Most people know that we do not have 52 weeks in a year. We have 52 weeks and one day in a year. In a leap year, we have 52 weeks and two days. That is creep; it creeps on.

Mr. Rooker: This is the first time that the Minister has mentioned "creep".

Dr. Boyson: I have a heading on my speech. Here it is—"creep". I have not made it up.

Mrs. Margaret Beckett: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that, as the Government crept two weeks forward in 1980, there is no need for them to creep forward another week this year? Should they not be creeping back?

Dr. Boyson: If the hon. Lady could add up, she would know that we must go back a week every four or five years. I will explain what would happen if we did not "creep".
The uprating this year will take effect on 26 November, which is 53 weeks after the last uprating. Some hon. Members seemed to think that that was a trick designed to deprive pensioners of a week's benefit increase. It is nothing of the sort. When we introduced the requirement

that upratings should take place by the end of the month of the anniversary of the last uprating the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) recognised what he called
the problems of the British calendar".
"Creep" is part of the problems of the British calendar. Every year contains one day more than 52 weeks and a leap year contains two days more than 52 weeks.
The right hon. Member for Salford, East accepted the need for the uprating to be fixed to prevent it sliding forward. In a debate in the Standing Committee on the Social Security Bill 1980 he said:
We are trying to set a date in the middle of the month which would become more or less fixed" — [Official Report, Standing Committee E; 12 February 1980, c. 317.]
We must have an interval of 53 weeks every few years or the uprating will slip forward gradually until it moves right out of November into October. The mathematicians among us will realise that in 50 years' time we would be uprating in mid-summer. If we had upratings every 52 weeks, as Opposition Members seem to want, the date would creep forward every year until, by my reckoning—Opposition Members should check that and inform me if I am wrong—around the year 2243 we would be uprating on 1 January, with another uprating on 31 December—two upratings in one year.

Mr. Rooker: That is almost three centuries from now.

Mr. Boyson: We are optimists and live long. We plan for the future. Opposition Members are supposed to be the planners' party, but we are looking after the next 200 years.

Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent): Would the problem be eased if we were to adopt the Greek calendar? That would also solve the vexed problem about Easter.

Dr. Boyson: I am sympathetic to that view. However, we must sort out social security before we adopt the Greek calendar.

Mr. Rooker: It is nearer 300 years.

Dr. Boyson: The double uprating would occur in 300 years' time, not 200 years' time. I admit that I was totally wrong. It is nice to know that the Opposition are right from time to time.
I should now like to mention two of the more important changes we will be making. To start with the supplementary benefit changes, I should like to refer to two changes in particular which will come into effect in August. First, people on supplementary benefit will in future be able to claim reimbursement of fares to visit relatives in residential homes and hostels. Until now fares have been payable only for visits to close relatives in hospital, and this extension represents a further step in the Government's commitment to community care by ensuring that a person discharged from hospital to a residential home or hostel can continue to receive visits.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Newton) replied to the previous debate, he pointed out that, although the concessions were small, they were important to the individuals involved because without them they could not fulfil their social and family duties.
Secondly, in order to provide an incentive to supplementary benefit claimants to take on part-time work, we shall extend single payments for work expenses


to people taking up part-time work of not less than 15 hours a week. This will include people working on projects under the community programme.
I turn to the vexed problem of the available scale margin. As hon. Members know, weekly payments of supplementary benefit consist of: first, the "scale rate"—an amount for claimants' normal living expenses; and, secondly, in some cases, an extra amount for special expenses, such as special diets or heating needs.
In 1966, under the Labour Government, a standard long-term addition to the scale rate was introduced for supplementary pensioners and others, except unemployed people, who had been getting national assistance or supplementary benefit for two years or more. One reason for its introduction was to provide an extra margin of expenditure for these groups and, for example, to help towards the purchase of new household equipment. But it was also intended to reduce the need for discretionary additions to weekly benefit, the number of which had grown rapidly in recent years, and to limit the need to ask detailed questions about special expenses is something with which all hon. Members would agree. The Labour Government of the time therefore decided that the "long-term addition", at that time 45p, should be offset in full against any weekly payments for special circumstances, including payments for extra heating costs, to avoid double provision for the same expense. The long-term payment was introduced at 45p instead of making a payment in another way. That was sensible, and I do not attack the Labour Government for it. I am merely filling the background to the available scale margin.
During the Second Reading debate on the Bill, the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in that Labour Government, the right hon. Margaret Herbison, said:
The purpose of this long-term addition is a simple one. It is to remove in these cases the need to inquire into the small day-to-day expenses for which the bulk of the discretionary allowances are now made. Under the new scheme no special inquiries will be necessary in long-term cases, unless there are indications that there is chronic ill-health or disability giving rise to such heavy expenditure that further provision is necessary. Thus, one of the features of the existing scheme which has both made it difficult for the elderly person to estimate what he would be likely to receive if he applied and which has been a source of embarrassment and dislike to those who have applied will be eliminated." — [Official Report, 24 May 1966; Vol. 729, c. 341.]
Long-term supplementary benefit was introduced at 45p instead of giving the benefit in other ways.

Mr. Rooker: Given that the year was before decimalisation, will the Minister tell us whether we are talking about 3s. 9d. or 9s.?

Dr. Boyson: I shall have to check that. What was the year of decimalisation?

Mr. Rooker: It was 1971–72.

Dr. Boyson: In that case we are talking about 45p in current terms. The amount does not matter for my argument. Long-term supplementary benefit then was at a higher level so that benefits would not have to be paid out in other ways. People did not have to apply for it, but received it regularly.
In effect, therefore, the long-term rate was intended to pay for most special expenses for which additions had been given under the National Assistance Act 1948, so removing the embarrassment to claimants of claiming and also reducing administrative costs in dealing with claims.
The long-term addition was increased to the equivalent of 50p in 1968, by the then Labour Government, who continued to offset all of it against additional requirements in 1972 the Conservative Government of the time increased the long-term addition of long-term supplementary benefit to 60p, but, for the first time, part of the addition was not offset. The amount available to be offset remained at 50p.
The following year, 1973, the Conservative Government decided to incorporate the long-term addition into a new set of long-term scale rates. They also decided to keep the amount to be offset—now for the first time known as the "available scale margin"—at 50p. That Government also decided in 1973 that the ASM should no longer be offset against additions for heating. If we had continued as before, the available scale margin would have been off-set against them. Since then, as we all know, the difference between the long-term and the short-term rates has steadily increased. From November 1984, for example, a couple on the long-term rate will be £11·55 better off than they would be on the ordinary rate. But the amount of this extra benefit which is offset against additional payments for special expenses—the available scale margin—has not been increased since a Labour Administration put it up to 50p 16 years ago. It therefore seems reasonable, and arguably long overdue—and within the then Labour party's philosophy — that we should increase the margin to bring it up to the relatively modest level of £1.
It is a modest increase. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree made the point in the debate on disabled people on 29 June. He said:
the chief Opposition Front Bench spokesman on social security, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) described the difference between 50p and £1 as paltry when the proposal was announced. It does not lie in the mouths of Opposition Members now to pretend that there is some massive attack on the rights of the sick, disabled and elderly"—[Official Report, 29 June 1984; Vol. 62, c. 1330.]
Nor is it unreasonable that the margin should be offset against heating additions, as it was until 1973. But we are not applying the margin to heating additions for children, who do not receive the long-term scale rate. Indeed, for the first time we are exempting additional payments for children's laundry and for boarding-out fees from the available scale margin, which will benefit more than 3,000 families who would otherwise have problems. Therefore, what we are doing with the available scale margin is taking a modest step back towards the original principle underlying it when it was introduced by the Labour Government. It is equivalent to a return to clause 4 of the Labour party's constitution — [Interruption.] I have clause 4 here in case anyone wishes me to read it. If I decided to be mischievous, I could compare this step back towards first principles with the Labour party moving back to its basic objectives—to clause 4 of its constitution.

Mr. John: Does the Minister recognise that I asked a question at the time of the announcement, which elicited the response that this was a severe cut to 1·8 million people on long-term supplementary benefit? So I do not accept any charge of inconsistency from the Minister.

Dr. Boyson: I have never said that the hon. Gentleman was inconsistent. All that I said was that if one followed the Labour party's principle the figure would now be £11·55. The figure for the available scale margin was equivalent to the difference between their long-term and


short-term rates. Hon. Members may not like it, but one can see that from previous debates. They may have changed their minds—they would be right to do so—but that is what happened in the beginning. It may hurt them now, but those are the facts.
Our changes to the available scale margin should also be seen—Opposition Members must listen to this—in the context of improvements made by the Conservative Administration in the coverage of the long-term supplementary benefit rate. From 1966 to 1980, only pensioners and other claimants who had been in receipt of supplementary benefit for two years or more—except the unemployed who have never been able to qualify—qualified for the long-term rate. In 1980, the Conservative Government reduced the qualifying period for non-pensioners to one year. Similarly, in 1981, the Conservative Government changed the rules so that unemployed men aged more than 60 could qualify after a year; and in 1983 the Conservative Government again extended the rules so that men aged more than 60 qualified automatically without having to wait for a year. Those provisions did not exist under the Labour Government who were in office until 1979. We have also solved the invalidity trap by taking into account time spent in receipt of long-term incapacity benefits against the qualifying period for the long-term rate of supplementary benefits. Those are major achievements.
At the same time as proposing changes to the available scale margin, we plan to extend the scope of heating additions, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in the House on 18 June. We propose to introduce new automatic heating additions at the higher rate of £5·20 for supplementary pensioner householders aged more than 85. It is estimated that about 90,000 people will gain from this. We are also extending automatic heating additions to all supplementary pensioner householders aged more than 65, as a result of which a further 80,000 people will gain.
I remind the House that in 1979 the Conservative Administration introduced automatic heating additions for householder claimants with children aged under five and for supplementary pensioners aged 75 or more. In 1980, we reduced the qualifying age for supplementary pensioners to 70. Therefore, the Conservative Government have considerably increased the range of people entitled to heating additions.
We have also increased the real value of heating additions. Between November 1978 and November 1983 we increased the basic rate by about 140 per cent. compared with an increase in fuel prices of about 100 per cent. That tells the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) where the extra money has gone. Therefore, heating additions are worth more than ever before. We expect to spend about £400 million on heating additions this year, after allowing for the savings from applying the available scale margin to heating additions. That represents about £140 million more in real terms than was spent in the final year of the Labour Administration. There is no question about what the Conservative Government are doing to help people in need.

Mr. Rooker: It is to pay the gas tax.

Dr. Boyson: The average price of gas has increased by only 2 or 3 per cent. during the past two years, but when

the Labour party was in office it was increasing by that amount almost every six weeks. The hon. Member for Perry Bar should not say too much on that point. I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but he is not on a winning wicket with that point.
Apart from the uprating of child benefit, which I have already mentioned, two sets of regulations on child benefit are before the House. The first are the Child Benefit (Residence and Persons Abroad) Amendment Regulations 1984, which reduce the period during which child benefit is payable on a temporary absence abroad from 26 weeks to eight weeks.

Ms. Clare Short: Why?

Dr. Boyson: If the hon. Lady listens to the next sentence, she will understand. Child benefit is linked to residence in this country, and the new period of eight weeks will be sufficient to take account of holidays and other short visits abroad and will avoid short breaks in payments. In its report, the Social Security Advisory Committee considered that, on the whole, the change was reasonable. I hope that hon. Members have absorbed that sentence.

Mr. Max Madden: What justice is there in British citizens, or the children of British citizens living in this country perhaps with relatives, who can receive child benefit although they may reside here only for a short period, whereas child benefit is denied to the children of other British citizens who, for cultural and traditional reasons, visit their countries of origin often for much longer than eight weeks? Why are they denied child benefit if they are away for more than eight weeks but other British citizens are not denied it? That is discrimination and injustice, whether or not the Social Security Advisory Committee believed so.

Dr. Boyson: People see plots everywhere. If people are abroad for more than eight weeks, whether they are black, white or striped, they will not receive child benefit. There is no discrimination involved. It is the same for everyone, including Labour Members, Conservative Members and even alliance Members. I notice that one of the latter has joined us. We make rules for everyone who lives here. We are not discriminating on the grounds of race, religion or sex. Eight weeks would appear to be a reasonable period. The school holidays in Britain last for only four weeks, so those children should not be out of school for any longer.

Ms. Clare Short: Will the Minister give way?

Dr. Boyson: I shall give way, but I trust that the hon. Lady will not try to say that this is a conspiracy.

Ms. Clare Short: Why has the rule been introduced? The Minister knows, because we talked about this matter last week when I visited him, that families who originate in the West Indies or the Indian subcontinent have parents, aunts and uncles living abroad who are often not allowed to visit them here. Families, especially those with children aged under five, wish to visit their grandparents. It is clear that the change will hurt especially the Asian community. I wish to know why the Minister has introduced it. If he does not explain, I shall conclude—I believe rightly—that it is intended to discriminate against the Asian community.

Dr. Boyson: Again, hon. Members see conspiracies everywhere. For one thing, the normal school holidays are


four weeks, not eight weeks. It strikes me that the biggest discrimination is taking children out of school for long periods. Those who understand child benefit will know that it is linked to the payment of tax, and people cannot pay tax if they are not here. The period of eight weeks is fair enough.

Mr. Rooker: What does it have to do with tax?

Dr. Boyson: The two are linked. We do not have time to run round every rabbit warren, so let us move on.

Mr. Rooker: The Minister does not know what he is talking about.

Dr. Boyson: The same could be said of Opposition Members.
The Child Benefit (General) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1984 and the related amendments to the Supplementary Benefit (Conditions of Entitlement) Regulations clarify and simplify the arrangements which cover the benefit entitlement of unemployed people who are studying. I know that many constituents will raise this point with hon. Members, so to reduce the number of letters that I shall receive, perhaps hon. Members on both sides of the House will pay close attention to what I say. The regulations introduce a statutory definition of full-time education, for child benefit and supplementary benefit purposes, of more than 12 hours' instruction a week, excluding homework, meal breaks and unsupervised private study. The main effect is to clarify the amount of study that unemployed young people aged between 16 and 19 can do during the three-month qualifying period for the 21-hour rule without putting their supplementary benefit entitlement at risk.
The changes were welcomed by the Social Security Advisory Committee as introducing a clear definition of full-time education for child benefit and supplementary benefit purposes. The committee ended its comments by saying:
We are particularly glad that the proposed definition is in terms of hours of supervised study, since we understand that a number of difficulties have been caused by the inclusion of homework within the 15 hours allowed.
That has nothing to do with saving or spending. We are trying to amend the difficulties of administering a system based on 15 hours of study, of which a changeable amount could be homework, about which nobody knew. With general agreement, we have pinned the requirement down to 12 hours of instruction, and whatever is done as homework is in addition. This has not been done to decrease any benefit but to make it simpler for the institutions and the benefit officers to know what is going on.
There are two sets of regulations before the House that concern family income supplement. The first regulations are straightforward and increase the FIS levels from 27 November. The second set of regulations give effect to the proposal announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 18 June that changes in the FIS level should, like all other changes in circumstances, only be taken into account when a new award is made. This is achieved by a simple revocation, but there are a numer of provisions leading to renewal awards that I have no time to explain.
Certain decisions have been made about this so that on balance, people do not lose out. If any hon. Members have queries about this, I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will deal with them later.

Mr. Rooker: The end of innings batsman.

Dr. Boyson: My hon. Friend is a very effective end of innings batsman, as we saw before the Division at the end of the previous debate.
I have mentioned some of the more controversial changes that will take place in November, but I shall also remind the House about an improvement that we shall be making, and one of which I am particularly glad in a year in which we celebrate the 40th anniversary of D-day. We are able to direct some special help to elderly war widows. War widows receive differing amounts, according to the year in which their husband was killed. These days, pensions are built in to service conditions and today widows of service men killed have better conditions than do widows whose husbands were killed in the second world war. By this change, we are helping widows whose husbands who fought in the first or second world wars. We propose to increase the existing age allowances by over 15 per cent. and to introduce a new rate of £12·50 a week at the age of 80. Some 50,000 war widows will benefit from these improvements.
With regard to uprating, hon. Members will know about the strike by a number of computer staff at the Department's central office at Newcastle, which is currently disturbing payments of retirement pension, widow's benefit and child benefit. I deplore this action, as it is causing concern and anxiety to pensioners and other beneficiaries. We remain ready to resume negotiations, which the unions broke off to take strike action, and therefore I welcome a recent initiative by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, reported in a number of newspapers that hon. Members will have read this morning, to bring both sides together. The Government gladly accept this offer. I hope that this inititative will also be welcomed by the unions and that a speedy settlement can be achieved, so that there will be no delay in the uprating.
Given an early return to normal working, I am confident that the uprating will be completed broadly on time. I can assure the House, however, that whatever happens, no pensioner will lose any of the increase as a result of the dispute. Every effort will be made to pay the increases with as little delay and inconvenience as possible.
This year's uprating package is fair both to those who receive benefits and those who pay for them. Many of those who are in work are having to learn that pay rises have to be earned by increased productivity. It is right that during a recession we should be particularly concerned about those who are most in need, but we also have to strike the right balance. We believe that this uprating will maintain the real value of all the main benefits and scale rates, and it also concentrates some small but worthwhile improvements where help is most needed.

Mr. Michael Meacher: As is so often the case with the Minister, we have had a great deal of knockabout. We have heard a lot about "creep" in the year 2243, we have had a lengthy diatribe about the Labour Government in the late 1960s, we have had many selective statistics about previous selected years, but we have had rather little about some of the more important aspects of these regulations.
I make it clear that we are opposing the uprated regulations not because we oppose uprating but, because,


as with so many previous Tory uprating regulations under this Government, these regulations are pitted with hidden cuts. Once again, the Government have used what should be a relatively straightforward and routine operation for a major cuts exercise, worth more than £100 million.
I shall respond first to the Minister's remarks at the end of his speech. In one other important respect, the Government have seriously mishandled this uprating exercise. I refer to the current dispute at Newcastle and at Washington. That has clearly been provoked by the Government, as I shall go on to explain. As a result, the Government have put the uprating date of 21 November at risk.

Dr. Boyson: Nonsense.

Mr. Meacher: The Minister protests loudly, but perhaps he should listen to me first.

Dr. Boyson: It would help for me to intervene now, as I do not believe that the Government have provoked anything. I have been involved in this episode from the beginning, and the Government have bent over backwards to keep the office working. It would help considerably if the Opposition, instead of making cheap remarks, would ask the unions, as we have done, to accept the conciliation of ACAS.

Mr. Meacher: My remarks are not cheap, but I am more than happy to recommend that there should be a resumption in negotiations. As the Minister mentioned this dispute, it is only fair that the other side should be put.
The Government's proposals, which led to strike action being taken, were made on the basis of saving money by running shifts in a cheaper way and by, in effect, taking money out of members' pockets and expecting them to work more unsociable hours for pleasure. Originally, it would have cost the Department £44,000 to meet the trade union's demand to protect the position of employees. Industrial action has been going on for so long that it has already cost well over £10 million, and the costs rapidly escalate every week.
It is to be hoped that both sides will return to serious negotiation through the mediation of ACAS on this issue, so that pensioners and other beneficiaries will not be disadvantaged because of the uprating date. That requires a recognition from the Government that greater efficiency, which we support, cannot be obtained by worsening employees' take-home pay and conditions of service. I hope that there will be a speedy conclusion of the dispute.
I repeat that there are £100 million-worth of cuts in this package. This is detailed in a parliamentary answer that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) received on 21 June. In it, the Minister listed the additional expenditure involved in these regulations, which comes to £29·4 million. The cuts, listed in the same place, total £97 million—those are the Government's figures. However, the Minister has excluded from the cuts set out in the answer the one week delay in the uprating for pensioners and others. That date should have been 19 November, but it has been put back to 26 November.
The Minister's defence of this, by reference to "creep"—an interesting word which may come into the social security vocabulary but which nobody had heard before tonight — is farcical. As long as there is a 52-week

interval preserved between upratings, there is no reason why upratings should not come forward one week in the calendar year every five or six years. The Minister seems concerned about "creep". Is he satisfied with the Government's achievement four years ago, when there was a delay at the expense of the pensioner of two weeks in the uprating which saved the Government £100 million? There is absolutely no reason this time why pensioners should be deprived of the uprating for one further week. The order represents a further cut by the Government. The Minister may disagree, but I believe that the cost of the delay for the further five days amounts to between £35 million and £40 million. Therefore, all told, the cuts in this package amount to about £135 million.
The nastiest element in the package has been referred to by the Minister and is the change in the obscure "available scale margin". Indeed, we are grateful to the Minister for the history lesson that he gave us. However, that is the name given to the 50p that is currently deducted from the total of weekly additions that those on long-term supplementary benefit receive, except where the additions involve heating, blindess or age. I think that I have got that right, but it is, indeed, a very obscure point.
I believe that there are more than 2·25 million claimants on the long-term rate. Almost by definition, they are some of the poorest people in Britain. However, 80 per cent. of them will lose out as a result of the changes proposed in the regulations. That is why we shall vote against them. Nearly 1·5 million of them will now have between 50p and £1 a week taken away from them and pensioners—I am sure that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden), who is not in the Chamber at present, will be concerned about this—will be the largest group. Of course, we are very concerned about that. Families with children—which were recently identified in the Policy Studies Institute report as suffering the greatest hardship of those on benefit—will also be forced to take a cut. Indeed, 80,000 of them will lose between 50p and £1. In our view, this is a particularly mean, nasty and unnecessary measure. It is screwing £86 million—that is the total—out of the very poor, despite the fact that in the last Budget, four months ago, the Government gave away more than £700 million to the very rich through the abolition of the investment income surcharge, a halving of stamp duty on stock exchange transactions, a relaxation of capital transfer tax and a raising of the higher rate thresholds. It is the contrast in the treatment between the poor and the rich that we find so absolutely objectionable.
If there must be public expenditure cuts—and we do not accept that—the very least that is fair is that the money should be taken equally from all sections of the population or, as we would say, that more should be taken from the rich who can bear it more. As has happened so many times before, the Government have done the exact opposite. Moreover, in doing this, the Government are flying in the face of the advice that they have received from their own civil servants.
In a pamphlet entitled "Social Assistance" the Whitehall inquiry recommended:
abolition of the 50p offset would simplify the scheme and achieve a greater measure of equity.
Those are not our words. It is not often that the Government now set up an independent inquiry. They prefer to stack them with Ministers, but a few years ago they had an independent inquiry and that was its conclusion. Given that this Government are the most


inequitable in modern times it is perhaps not surprising that, instead of abolishing the available scale margin, they are doubling it.
Our next objection is to the whole range of cheese-paring cutbacks in benefits for children. Instead of the Government taking a positive view—as any Government should do, in the circumstances—of the overall benefit framework needed in child care, they have given us a whole series of nasty little cuts that are the very opposite of a planned and sensible system. There is no way of rationalising such cuts. One example is the delay in the family income supplement uprating. For the first time, the Government are decreeing that existing claimants will not receive the new level of benefit until, or if, they make a fresh claim.
That trip wire involves an £11 million cut. It will affect 200,000 of the poorest families in this country and will take away £65, on average, from a typical two-child family. It will also deprive some families of as much as £100 to £150. That is a big cut, as anyone who has ever tried to live on FIS will know. It means that this year the Government are increasing child benefit by £36.40 for a two-child family, but are at the same time not only cancelling that child benefit increase for the lowest paid families on FIS but, as one can quickly see from the figures, extracting a further major cut of £30 million from those poorest families with children. That cannot be right.
Another example of the Government's cuts mentality that destroys a rational system of child care involves the abolition, this November, of the short-term child dependency additions. Surely, in logic and fairness, families should receive the same level of benefit for their children regardless of whether they are in work. That is the only fair and proper system that will preserve incentives. But the Government have systematically reduced the real value of the child dependency additions to those out of work. We believe that that is wrong, for the reasons that I have given. Another example of inequity in child support arrangements under these regulations is the meanness of the child benefit increase. I am only too glad to offer in support of my case a quote that comes from an unusual quarter. The Conservative National Women's Committee recommended:
Child benefit should be increased in line with any increase in tax allowances … remembering that child benefit has replaced the former system of child tax allowances.
That is absolutely right. However, whilst the personal tax allowances will have increased by about 13 or 14 per cent. between April 1978 and November 1984, child benefit will have increased over the same period—assuming that the Government's inflation forecast is about right—by only 2·7 per cent.
I am indebted to the Child Poverty Action Group—as no doubt all hon. Members are—for its excellent advice on such debates and for some of its calculations. But as it has made clear, on that basis, if child benefit were to be increased by the same amount in real terms as tax allowances, it would rise in November to £7·60 instead of £6·85. In other words, there should be an increase of £1·10 instead of the Government's 35p. That is the measure of the shortfall in the increase in this crucial benefit, which perhaps lies right at the heart of the social security system.
Our last major objection to these regulations is their unjust and discriminatory treatment of young people, whether in work or unemployed. In our previous debate, I used the phrase "a vendetta", and the Minister did not

like it. But if I give my reasons, he may see why I feel so strongly. First, it is surely incongruous that it is now proposed that school leavers' earnings should lead to a deduction in their parents' benefit. Surely a 16 or 17-yearold recent school leaver, who is considered old enough to support himself or herself when in work, is equally entitled to an independent income when unemployed. Surely that is a sensible principle.
Secondly, the Government are introducing new rules under these regulations regarding unemployed young people which will make part-time study much more difficult. The Government propose that under the so-called 12-hour rule—the system is incredibly complicated for hon. Members, so I hate to think what it is like for unemployed youngsters—young people aged under 19 who have not yet been unemployed for three months will not be entitled to benefit if they study for more than 12 hours a week. What a rule to introduce into the social security system. The effect will be that thousands of genuinely unemployed young people who want to improve their job prospects by study while looking for work will be denied the opportunity to do that. That cannot be right, even by this Government's philosophy.
We are not opposed to uprating in principle, but we oppose these uprating measures for five reasons. First, we oppose them because interspersed in these upratings are major and damaging cuts of about £110 million. Secondly, we oppose them because, under the social security regulations, cuts are being directed exclusively at the poor while, at the same time, under the Government's Budget orders this year, much larger sums are being given away in huge tax reliefs directed exclusively at the rich.
Thirdly, we oppose them because thousands of families on family income supplement—nobody disputes that they are among the poorest families in work—will lose far more than they gain from the child benefit uprating by simultaneous cutbacks in the operation of FIS. Fourthly, we oppose them because they deliberately deprive young unemployed people of the opportunity for part-time study so as to improve their job prospects.
Fifthly, we oppose them because, yet again, the Government have turned their backs on what we believe is now a central deficiency in the social security system, and that is the need to extend the long-term rate of supplementary benefit to the long-term unemployed; I know that that finds echoes among some of the more civilised elements on the Government Benches.
Because, in so many ways, these uprating measures are more about cuts—mean, niggardly and unjust cuts at that—than about uprating, my hon. Friends and I will be voting against them tonight.

Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent): I wish to pursue a narrow point which the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) laboured earlier, because it is a point with wider implications. I speak about the benefit for those wishing to study.
Even within the narrow confines of our present policy, why must we have this restriction? Is it not more to do with policing the benefits system than with adding any advantage to the recipients of benefit? The SSAC has said that it does not believe that the qualifying period is the best way to separate bona fide from frivolous students. Yet we persist with it. Will the Minister explain why?
If we accept the need for a qualifying period, then this change — which, given that it did not accept the principle, was recommended by the advisory committee—is a modest improvement. Under the previous rule, the 15 hours a week excluded homework and there were some horrifically mean-minded cases where young people were caught studying at home — no doubt under the bedclothes with a torch—and debarred from benefit. Now at least they can undertake unlimited homework. From his experience as a headmaster, does the Minister consider that the 12 hours allowed to young people is enough to enable a student to study for two A levels, remembering that that qualification is the gateway to higher education?
The problem is only a symptom of a much wider conundrum. For historic reasons, supplementary benefit still carries the connotation of something for nothing. It is understandable that groups in society who are in work, who earn low wages and who nevertheless manage to keep their homes neat and their children tidy, should feel resentful when they see other people who, in their eyes, are doing nothing, bringing home in some cases a sum not unlike that which they work so hard to achieve. Indeed, Beveridge perpetuated the idea of a work test.
But we are now in new circumstances and the Government, for example, find themselves, for entirely compassionate reasons, in a difficult dilemma. I, like all Conservative Members utterly detest involuntary unemployment. Ministers have constantly repeated their detestation of it and are wholly committed to reducing it. So that nobody, inside or outside the House, should misunderstand that message, Ministers come here regularly and speak as though the ending of unemployment were not only the goal of policy but as though a return to full employment would be a return to normality. That carries with it the implication that the traditional principles of the benefits system should endure unaltered, with the work test still, in certain ways, in place.
I believe that the time has come to move from that position. In one part of our policy the Government are encouraging people to leave work voluntarily. Early retirement and job-sharing are examples, and the people who accept them are, in a sense, heroes of the Great British monarchy as they make their contribution to easing the unemployment problem.
At the same time, however, the Government are persisting in rules that lay down that if one is not available for work—if one is not competing in that market which is so hopelessly overcrowded at present—one shall have no benefit. There is nothing heroic about the people at that end of the scale. Yet those who have the least chance of finding employment in society are the low skilled and the poorly qualified.
This provision hits at them, and it hits them at the very moment when they are taking steps to better their chances of finding work. It is then that they are cut off from benefit. That is absurd and, non-Conservative and it must be changed.
The Government must now accept that even without political strikes, it will take many years to end unemployment. To say that is not to presage a relaxation in the war against it. However, it changes the assumptions behind the benefit rules. It opens the path to accepting the principle — which has existed in practice for many

people—of a guaranteed minimum income which would eliminate destructive policy rules such as those we are discussing. I hope that the Minister will comment on the remarks that I have made.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: I shall be brief because several other hon. Members, particularly on these Benches, wish to speak in the debate.
As I listened to the Minister, I thought it curious to view him as the human face of the Tory party. I also found it curious to listen to the history lesson that he gave, containing almost no comment about the deficiencies that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) highlighted.
It is as well to realise that we are discussing the stark contrast between the Government's treatment of the rich and of the poor. In this year alone, we are witnessing the cumulative effect of tax cuts, in the main to the rich, of about £4 billion. Yet, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West said, the Government are imposing cuts on the poor of about £135 million, an act of almost monumental pettiness compared with the amount that the Government are giving away.
I was interested to hear the Minister of State say that child benefit was linked to the taxation system. I believe that that statement raised some eyebrows among Labour Members. If the Minister is prepared to defend that position, he must defend equally the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, who said that the uprating of child benefit falls considerably behind the operation of tax thresholds and tax bands. If child benefit is linked to taxation, that link should be formally analysed. Child benefit should be uprated to the level of £1·10 to bring it back into line with the various tax thresholds during the past five years. I hope that the Minister will say when that action will be taken.
It is important for the House and the country to recognise that, despite the Minister's protestations the action on changing child benefit regulations involving residents and persons abroad is especially squalid. How much money do the Government intend to save? Even if the Minister is right in his submission that the action was not taken to discriminate against various ethnic groups — and who am I to challenge his view? — the Government have taken an incredibly mean-minded step because the measure will save almost no money. It will, however, cause genuine worry to many members of the Asian and various other ethnic communities who, because of family habits and practices, take children abroad for considerably longer than eight weeks. It is important that we recognise that the measure will hurt individual families.
Slightly more than half of my constituency is in the Conservative-controlled borough of Trafford, in which discretionary grants for students have not existed for many years. It may not seem wholly unreasonable to hon. Members to accept that many of my constituents in the student age group think that the supplementary benefit regime should support those who wish to pursue education when they know very well that they have no opportunity to go into full-time employment. My constituents are discriminated against because the local authority denies them the right to grant and because there is no acceptable provision from central Government sources through the benefit structure. That discrimination would not occur in


other areas—for example, in Manchester where some of my other constituents live. It is time that we reviewed the position of students vis-a-vis those claiming supplementary benefit, but that has not been done in these regulations.
The most disgraceful aspect of the uprating involves those who are denied the long-term rate of supplementary benefit. We are talking about a mere £485 million, which would allow the Government to bring in this reform. That figure can be contrasted with the £4 billion which the Government are giving away to the very rich in tax cuts. We can, therefore, note the Government's precise priorities—they talk about the poor as the peripheral and the uprating of benefits for them as a residual part of the Treasury's calculations. The rich will again inherit the benefits of our society.
If we accept the definition of "poverty" as a prison with glass walls, the poor, who once again have not been given an acceptable standard of living in our society, will look out of their glass-walled prisons and deeply resent the Government's actions.

Mr. Alistair Burt: Looking back through Hansard one notes that debates on changes in social security benefits tend to follow an all too predictable pattern. The Government of the day make a case that, despite economic difficulties and crises of one sort or another, they have ensured that the benefit system has protected those whom they consider to be the very poorest from the effects of rising prices and poverty. The Government get a certain amount of support from their Back Benchers—apart from tonight—and a certain amount of criticism from the same source. I shall have to do both jobs.
For their part, the Opposition, regardless of party label, launch a predictable attack claiming financial mismanagement, that more money should be spent to protect more people and that, given the chance, they could do things much better. That last point flies in the face of all previous evidence, which tends to suggest that when they were last in government they behaved more or less the same as those they seek to criticise from the Opposition Benches.
To a certain extent, that same pattern of debate has been followed today, and for a few moments I shall probably continue in the same fashion. There is little doubt that the present Government have succeeded in convincing the vast majority of British people that public expenditure, no matter how it is given away, is largely financed by the taxpayer. The free lunches in the British economy brought about by the post-war boom began to vanish in the late 1970s, and reality was brought home with a vengeance during the 1980s. Those who watched the very fine television series recently on BBC2, "All Our Working Lives", cannot fail to have been impressed by a cogent analysis of British industrial history which in a nutshell demonstrated that one can write whatever one likes upon the wall, but one cannot always make a fool read it.
If the day of reckoning has arrived for British industry, it cannot be far away for our benefit system because, stripped of various pleas for more money for this or that group of disadvantaged people, this debate should really be about the system that underpins the various benefits.
Despite the claim that severe ideological pressure has coloured the Government's thinking towards public finance, there is little real evidence to suggest that the

benefit system has been destroyed in the manner claimed by some Opposition Members. Real spending on social security benefit has continued to increase since 1979. Despite the financial constraints of recent years, the Government have maintained all the key elements of the social security scheme and are spending a greater percentage in real terms on that scheme than when they first took office.
Facts and figures on the Government's record have already been given. I believe it is fair to say that the very poorest in our society have been protected. It would always be nice to spend more; but to examine social security uprating solely in the light of "how much money can we give?" is fatally unrealistic. The link between public expenditure and the economy generally is now accepted by all and was certainly accepted by the last Labour Government who failed on occasions to achieve a naive, though well-meant, earnings-linked target. If there is one thing more cruel than poverty, it is a party, whether in government or opposition, which raises the hopes of the poor and then dashes those hopes due to the unreality of its economics.
Especially helpful this year has been my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's raising of tax thresholds and the continuing attention paid to heating additions. Perhaps the DHSS would have to pay out less in heating additions if it were able to fire a warning shot over the bows of the Treasury to convince it not to put its fingers in the energy scene unnecessarily. To force electricity prices up—albeit by a minute percentage compared with the previous Labour Government—and then to raise heating additions to allow the poorest to pay for them is surely an object lesson from the "How Not To Do It Book of Political Savvy and Administrative Expertise". Certain things in the Government's benefit record have not been so good.
I spoke in the last housing benefits debate before today's and, without rehearsing all those ideas, I still think that it is crass to have a major review to decide how best housing benefit should be administered and to whom, while at the same time persisting with the sort of changes that produced the pressures to have the review in the first place. It will be no compensation to those who have been suffering because of the effect or threat of changes for the review at the end of the day to say, "We do not think those changes should have been made, and we shall now restore what has been lost."
It makes neither political nor administrative sense and it would have been far better to wait, as many commentators suggested, for the housing benefit review to complete its deliberations before any further decisions on housing benefit were made. Similarly, the reduction in supplementary benefit for more than 1½ million pensioners is most unwelcome. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, 20,000 families will lose up to 50p per week and 80,000 families will lose between 50p and £1 per week.
For the families on low incomes these reductions, the equivalent perhaps to just a few cups of tea for those of us in the House of Commons, can mean a great deal. A reduction in supplementary benefit does not make it easy for those of us on these Benches to seek to establish our claim that we intend to protect the poorest in our society.
Pious exhortations from the Opposition about what we should do ring a little hollow. One cannot seriously sit on th Opposition Benches and support two of the most


damaging strikes in the British economy in recent years and expect that same economy to be strong enough to provide more money for the people one claims to protect.
The days of the great claims for money to support more groups in society, regardless of the state of the public purse, have surely gone, and rightly so. In much the same way as politically motivated strikes in the docks and mines are sabotaging the economy, the same economy that last year managed to hand out nearly £1 billion to the mining industry, a demand for a great increase in public expenditure, willy-nilly, will sabotage the economy. In the same way that industrial strikes are often the worst thing for the working man, so a vast increase in public expenditure could be the worst thing to affect the poor.
We must face the fact that, like the National Health Service, the claims for expenditure on social security relate to a bottomless pit. It is difficult to find the correct balance and this Government, in much the same way in all fairness as all previous Governments, have tried to do their best. We are fast approaching a time when the public expenditure indicators on social security trends suggest that doing our best will not be enough.
I find it a great disappointment that neither this Government nor any previous Government have considered—though I now urge it upon them as a matter of great urgency — a fundamental and deep-rooted reform of the social security system along the lines set out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies in its recent publication entitled "Reform of Social Security".
It is that which goes to the heart of the problem that we have been discussing. The benefits system has few friends but many flaws. We have created a baffling system of means-tested benefits with many means-related benefits subject to different tests. We have created circumstances where few of those who administer the benefits truly understand the complexities of the benefits that they administer. Depending upon which Sunday paper one reads, either 5p or 10p of every pound of social security that is handed out is spent on administration.
In housing benefit alone, we have succeeded in creating a system designed to simplify which has produced only further confusion. If the social security system were designed to prevent poverty, it does not. Although we do not face—and claims to the contrary are fatuous—the poverty that the country faced in the 1930s, some 1·3 million households still struggle around the poverty line. There are a further 1·5 million households just above that.
The system created the poverty trap, a system which flies in the face of attempts by men and women to cloth themselves with the respectability of work without being financially penalised for so doing. The system has created marginal tax rates of over 100 per cent. for some families with children. In addition to the poverty trap, we have created the unemployment trap.
The system is so complicated that we know that many thousands of people eligible for benefits do not even claim them. What pressure would there be on the economy if the take-up were 100 per cent.? We have created a system which we know, and about which we tell ourselves from time to time and about which we do nothing, gives money to those people who do not need it and denies money to those who do.
The benefit of the system put forward in the Institute of Fiscal Studies' report is that it deals with some of those

fundamental problems. It tries to tackle the unemployment trap, the poverty trap, the black economy problems and the problems of low take-up by a simple system that combines tax credits with benefit credits. It can be done, and using new technology it is something that we should think about.
The acceptability of a social benefit and welfare system lies not just in the minds of those who receive the benefit, and should not be judged solely upon that, but also in the minds of those who pay for the system. In my view, the current social security system fails both tests. A pensioner saw me recently in my surgery and asked me why she should receive benefits with one hand and yet pay tax on them with the other. The complicated system of to and fro has gone on long enough.
Few of us in the House expect miracles from any Government. There is no production line for them, and we understand the constraints which tend to prevent them occurring, but we charge the Government not just with an obligation to present generations to create an economy which will be strong enough to allow individuals to provide for themselves, and a benefit system which will ensure that those who cannot so provide are assisted, but we also charge the Government with an obligation to future generations. That obligation takes the form of a charge upon Government to read the writing on their own wall, to anticipate problems and take action in good time to prevent them. With social security, that writing is well and truly upon the wall.
A combined tax benefit system has much to recommend it, and it is clear from the public reaction to the Institute of Fiscal Studies' publication that there is scope for thought and immediate consideration of how the system might work.

Mr. Rowe: Does my hon. Friend agree that in the short term, the major preoccupation should be to ensure that the many reviews which the Government have had the courage to initiate should not take decisions which make the combined system of which he is such a proponent more difficult to attain? There is no doubt that it will take a long time to introduce.

Mr. Burt: Absolutely. The short-term reviews of social security are to be welcomed, but I believe that to describe them as fundamental and radical would probably be wrong. They will be too short-term for that. I doubt whether the reviews will result in anything more than realistic tinkering with the present system and also whether a full-scale, detailed review along the lines that I am suggesting would be affected by any results of the current review. We shall need to wait and see what they produce. I believe that, with the best will in the world, it will be only tinkering with the present system.
A tax credit and benefit credit system, coupled with technological changes which are now available to us in the 1980s, and which were not available before, might just be what the country has been waiting for. Whether it is such an opportunity will demand long-term detailed scrutiny. I believe that it is the task of Government to give the suggested combined tax benefit system that detailed scrutiny. I believe that we fail in our obligations to future generations if we turn down the chance now.
The Government have been in power for some five years and are likely to remain in power for some time. However, this issue transcends party politics, because the administration and infrastructure of a social security


benefit system can be agreed between parties and set up without politics coming into it. It becomes a political issue when we decide how much money we give to a system and where that money is distributed, but it cannot be argued by anyone that we all seek the most efficient use of our resources, and the present flaws in the social security system suggest that that is not presently the case.
We should recall that the success of the Beveridge proposals, in the first instance, was that they were laid upon a bedrock of consensus through work done at a time of national peril over a period during the second world war. Those proposals could not be perfect, and some of their frailties have now been rather cruelly exposed. It would be good for the reputation of politics, good for us in the House, and good for the reputation of a Western democracy if people outside the Chamber could see the parties looking at a potential disaster and avoiding it in the same reasonable way that many people outside might employ to resolve their differences given a chance. There is no need to be naive. Party politics will enter into the matter soon enough, but the bulk of the work can be done without that.
The Conservative Government have the chance to take the first steps to such a reform by welcoming the IFS proposals and considering how best to assess their feasibility. They have the time, the means and the blueprint. They have the need. I hope to goodness that they have the compassion. It is also about time that they had the will to stop patching the system and sort it out. Many Conservative Members will not rest content until our party is identified not just as the party which will give the country the sound economy needed to satisfy and secure the aspirations of the people but also, through its strength of purpose and economic welfare policy, as the party for those who find themselves in financial difficulties through no fault of their own.
There have been shining moments in history when the Conservative party has been so identified. The greatest son of my constituency, Sir Robert Peel, whose various offices included that of Prime Minister, said after the repeal of the corn laws that he hoped that he might be remembered with sympathy and fondness in the homes of the poor for the fact that their bread was no longer leavened with a sense of injustice. As our tax benefit system continues to rob Peter to pay Paul, occasionally robbing the poor to pay the better-off, it would be a good thing indeed if a Conservative Government could set in train the removal of the sense of injustice from the bread of the social security system.

9 pm

Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I follow the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) in his condemnation of the premature introduction of upratings while the Government are reviewing the benefit system. It is right that that should be put on record today. I certainly do not follow the hon. Gentleman in his economic analysis. If the Government dig huge holes and put people out of work they have no right to squeal about the cost of supporting the unemployed afterwards. They should restimulate the economy, with a certain amount of inflation and the taxation necessary to redistribute wealth towards those most in need.
I listened with interest to the hon. Gentleman's comments about a tax credit scheme. I believe that there is much to be said for amalgamating the taxation and

benefit structures. I, too, have studied the IFS report. It is an interesting contribution to the general debate, but I do not support all its conclusions. In the short term, I believe that the emphasis must be on increasing child benefit.
I should say at once that I intend to follow the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) in voting against the regulations, principally for the reasons that he gave. First, they disguise cuts of more than £100 million. Secondly, I could never advise my colleagues to subscribe to the proposed changes in the available scale margin. Thirdly, the changes miss an opportunity to achieve a whole range of improvements.
I should say at this point that we welcome the Government's decision to go for arbitration in the DHSS strike in Newcastle and Washington. The decision comes rather late in the day, but I hope that arbitration will be successful as I am worried that many old people going on holiday will suffer if the dispute is not speedily resolved.
I am especially concerned at the way in which the upratings will affect pensioners. The remainder of my comments will thus fall into two sections, dealing first with pensions and then with other benefits. The number of pensioners in poverty, as defined by claims for supplementary benefit, including certified housing benefit, is estimated in the Government's recent public expenditure White Paper as about 1·8 million. The category in receipt of standard housing benefit covers 2·43 million, 160,000 claim housing benefit supplement and it is estimated that a further 880,000 are entitled to benefit but do not claim it. All those are official estimates. Rounded up, they show that more than 5 million households — more than half our pensioners — are experiencing some poverty.
I subscribe to the view of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) who adverted to the fact that it is a strange coincidence that for the past two years, since the historic method was adopted, the uprating month has been May. In that month, in each of those years, the retail price index was at its lowest. It will be interesting to see what happens in future.
Many things could have been done to alleviate the lot of the pensioners. I do not wish to make extravagant claims. Government Members often say that Opposition Members can make extravagant claims because they do not have the responsibility for raising revenue. That is fair enough. Nevertheless, the Government should make it clear what priority they give to some important aspects of supplementary benefit and pension regulations as they apply to old-age pensioners.
First, the capital limit is a cause of much concern, as I know from dealing with pensioner pressure groups and individual pensioners in my constituency. I regret the fact that the Government have not taken this opportunity to raise the capital limits for entitlement to supplementary benefit or single payments. The Government should lift the limits again. I believe that about 160,000 families are prevented from claiming benefit because of the capital requirements. Among them are many pensioners on very small fixed incomes.
Another cause of concern is the problem of unclaimed benefit. The Government are not doing enough about that. Some 880,000 pensioner households have incomes below the poverty line, it is estimated, and the weekly amount unclaimed is £5 or so. We need imaginative schemes that would increase the take-up. Such schemes would probably


necessitate taking on more DHSS staff. There should also be more house visits, particularly in rural areas, as old folk find it difficult to check their benefit entitlements. We on these alliance Benches would countenance any increase in expenditure that the employment of more DHSS staff for such work would entail.
I have already referred to the retail price index in connection with the month in which the uprating is carried out. As I have said many times in these debates, I believe that the RPI itself is flawed, as it relates to pensioners in a substantial number of ways. Age Concern estimates that, in the period 1974–1982, inflation has increased for pensioners by more than 12 per cent. more than it has increased for any other comparable group in society. We must use the RPI figures with caution when discussing the needs of the elderly.
The Government should clarify their views about the frequency of upratings. In this white-hot technological age, it must be possible to uprate pensions twice a year. There are arguments about whether the weekly books could be changed, and so on. However, I have a quotation here—I shall not read it out—which shows that in 1974 the present Secretary of State for Health and Social Security tried to persuade the then Secretary of State, Mrs. Castle, to consider a bi-annual increase. There is no argument against such a change. The upratings would then be much fairer and would keep up with the cost of living in a much more efficient way. The rate of increase chosen in these uprating regulations—the various benefits are to be increased by 5·1 per cent. or so—will be quickly overtaken by the rate of inflation in the next six months. In regard to pensions, the Conservative pledge of 1979 to abolish the earnings rule is still unfulfilled. I accept that there have been changes but they have not gone far or come fast enough. I should like the Government to make it clear how they intend to approach that.
I have often stressed the need to increase pensions above the minimum price relationship. The Social Security Advisory Committee's second report made it clear that pensions would inevitably fall behind the cost of living unless they were given occasional upgradings above the minimum price relationship provided for in the Social Security Act 1980. The Government's promise in their strategy statement of 1981 entitled "Growing Older" promised:
As the economy improves, elderly people will share in that improvement".
They are not at the moment.
Two regulations concern child benefit. The first uprates child benefit by 35p and the second affects children who are temporarily abroad. The alliance parties would like a 95p increase. Such an increase has been costed and put into our published tax credit scheme. The changes in the upratings are a form of anti-family taxation and the best short-term means of increasing the resources available for people who need them most is to increase child benefit by at least 95p. The Government must come clean on what future they think child benefit has. It was formerly understood that child benefit increases should match those in personal allowances. I deeply regret that that is not happening. I agree with what has been said about the practicalities, difficulties and potential discrimination of the changes in child benefit regulations for those who go abroad.
In regard to the family income supplement regulations, according to the Child Poverty Action Group the Government will save about £11 million and about 200,000 families will be affected. Their losses will vary, according to their circumstances, from £65 to £150 a year. That will effectively wipe out the child benefit increase that many families have succeeded in getting. The Government could not expect our support for the family income supplement regulations.
The first supplementary benefit regulation concerns young people and people who apply for refugee status and the second affects the available scale margin. According to figures supplied by the Child Poverty Action Group, the Government will save up to £86 million a year, 400,000 people will lose up to 50p a week, 1·4 million people will lose between 50p and £1 a week, 20,000 families will lose up to 50p a week and 80,000 families will lose between 50p and £1 a week. Many pensioners will also be worse off.
The Government should address their mind to the extension of the long-term rate of supplementary benefit to the long-term unemployed. That is long overdue and the social security advisory committee argued the case cogently. The Government should restore the taxation of invalidity benefit. That is also an old chestnut but long overdue.
I am prepared to accept that, if one took a calculator and costed everything I have recommended to the Government it would be impossible to achieve at a stroke. The Government have missed an opportunity to bring forward the uprating benefits and make their position clear on some of these issues. Some benefits could have been marginally improved, with modest increases. The Government should make their long-term position clear. Regretfully, I must tell the Government that we shall be following the hon. Member for Oldham, West into the Lobby tonight.

Mr. Brynmor John: Anybody in the country who is observing the House tonight must think that it is a crazy place. We are talking about uprating the state benefits of 40 million people — or uprating state handouts, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury called them in the economic debate. We are discussing the benefits in barely an hour more than we devoted to the bishops on Monday night. That is a crazy scale of priorities, when Opposition Members who are willing and able to participate in the debate must cut short their remarks so that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) will have a fair chance to make the summary of our case in the time that she deserves.
I do not care whether these debates are arranged through the usual channels. It is high time that we came back to a sense of reality. No one observing the debate would think that we treated them with anything other than contempt by debating a matter of such importance in 2½ hours. Frankly, there is no other point that I really want to make. I could have done so, but I do not want to make a point that is slipped in because it is quick and meretricious.
I believe deeply that this subject touches the poorest of this country. The contempt with which the country will view these proceedings is not helped by the Minister of State. He must choose whether he is to be a statesman or


a buffoon. There is a great war within him. I am bound to tell him that, to the detriment of his reputation, the George Formby side of his nature came out very markedly.
The subject should not be treated with undue solemnity, but nor is it a frivolous subject. The regulations that we shall pass tonight mean that people will have to live on these benefits for a year, week in and week out. In many cases the benefits will be the sole source of income.
The combination of the time allowed and the way in which the debate has been treated forces me to say that the debate on this subject is unworthy of the House of Commons. I wish to take no further part in it.

Mr. Roy Galley: I was grateful to hear the remarks from the Liberal Benches because, from the general tenor of remarks from the Opposition Benches, one would not have thought that we were discussing an increase in public expenditure of some £2 billion. Instead, the Opposition have concentrated on so-called cuts of just over £100 million.
One would not have thought, from the tone of the debate, that child benefits had been increased in the past five years by about 3 per cent. more than the rate of inflation, or that, with an inflation rate of 76·4 per cent., child benefit has increased by more than 79 per cent. in that time. One wonders, therefore, what will produce a balanced approach from Opposition Members. With an inflation rate of 76·4 per cent., we are increasing pensions by more than 83 per cent. over five years.
The Government's record on social security in terms of total expenditure and expenditure in take-up of mobility and invalidity allowances and so on has been very good. The real increase in specific benefits has been extremely good. One wonders from the tone of the debate what would satisfy Opposition Members. Do we have to pay more and more so that eventually we get into the bankruptcy court, as we did in 1977?
I support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt). We are faced with a series of documents of inordinate complexity. We are changing 50p here and 50p there. We are determining the price of a duffle coat and a pair of underpants. It is incredible that Parliament should be involved in such details. Every week millions of payments are made from families to the state and from the state to families. There are over 12 million payments of child benefit, over 9 million payments of pensions, over 1 million payments of unemployment benefit and hundreds and thousands of payments of many other benefits. Constant transfers are going on.
I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister groaned when my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North yet again mentioned tax credit, or what is better termed the integrated tax-benefit, system. The matter has been raised many times in the House, and has been a long saga. My hon. Friend the Minister might say later that, on the basis of the estimates of benefit not taken up and other factors, it could cost about £6 billion or £7 billion more than the £39 billion that we are now paying in the social security budget. Therefore, it is important to draw to the attention of my hon. Friend the suggestion of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that its proposals would result in a reduction of about £10 billion in public expenditure. It would mean a considerable redistributive effect. One cannot have such a reduction without a significant redistributive effect. There may be a case, particularly for child benefit for those

who are better off and some other benefits, for having a certain amount of redistribution at that end of the scale. That shows that an integrated tax-benefit system need not involve greater public expenditure.
I urge my hon. Friend to look closely at that principle while he is carrying out his reviews and to consider the fact that the administration of social security now costs over £1·6 billion.

Mr. Jeff Rooker: I want to introduce some sour grapes into the debate, as the Minister of State would expect.
Since 1979 the Christmas bonus, the age addition to retirement pension, death grant, maternity grant, supplementary benefit, additions for blindness and for a claimant over the age of 80 have all fallen in real terms. That fact will not be changed after the uprating instruments have been passed. The Government have not struck a blow for a single one of those benefits since 1979. They have finally abolished the child dependency addition to no less than 13 other benefits. Sickness benefit, invalidity pension, maternity allowances and unemployability supplement were cut by 5 per cent. in 1980, and that cut has not been restored. I obtained that information from one of the Minister's parliamentary answers earlier this year, which he will recollect. All those benefits have been cut. Therefore, there is no credit for the Government.
I reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) said about the management of our affairs, but in the short time available I want to concentrate on one aspect — the Prime Minister's view of the situation. On 28 June the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, from the Dispatch Box, referred to the social security programme as state handouts. I wrote to the Prime Minister and asked whether that was the kind of language used around the Cabinet table. I received one of the most ill-tempered letters from the Prime Minister which I have ever received. It was not only ill-tempered but grossly inaccurate.
On 5 July she claimed that the rise in the RPI has been only 71 per cent., including housing costs. She meant excluding housing costs. Whoever drafted the Prime Minister's letter was inaccurate. Including housing costs the RPI is about 76 to 77 per cent. Therefore, the Prime Minister was wrong on that count.
The Prime Minister had the brass cheek to say that spending on the sick and disabled will be increased by 30 per cent. in real terms without pointing out that there has been a cut of 66 per cent. on expenditure on benefits to the short-term sick. She then repeated the claim that has been made here tonight that child benefit is at its all-time high. I refute that claim. It is not possible to take child benefit on its own. As the Minister said, child benefit is just another name for the combination of child tax allowances and family allowance. Although child benefit will go up in November, the Government will not have put child support to the taxpayer back to the level of 1976–77 under the Labour Government. So the Prime Minister is not telling the truth when she claims that it is at an all-time high.
It is worth putting the figures on the record. In 1976–77 the maximum child tax allowance was £365 and child benefit for the second child and above—one has to take that because the system was slightly different — was £1·50. So child support for a basic rate taxpayer in


1976–77 under the Labour Government was £202·10 a year. From November child benefit will be £6·85 a week, equivalent to £365 per annum. But in 1976–77 prices that is only £1·60. That compares with £202 under the Labour Government. It is no good the Under-Secretary of State shaking his head. Those figures cannot be denied. So child support to taxpayers is nowhere near what it was under the Labour Government. It is about time the Prime Minister took that point on board. She is making misleading assertions. Obviously if the Government change the name of the benefit and only count their assessment of it from that year, they are open to accusations of juggling the figures.
The Chief Secretary let the cat out of the bag when he referred to the social security system as state handouts. He did not qualify that. At Question Time last Thursday he qualified it by saying that he was referring to the non-contributory part of the social security system; but he did not say that the week before. He was referring to widows' pensions, retirement pensions, unemployment benefit, any national insurance benefit, maternity grant, mobility allowance, attendance allowance and all the benefits for the disabled. The Chief Secretary called those state handouts.
Yet this year we have had a Budget in which tax reliefs have been given to owners of stud farms, employees earning £100,000 a year by means of tax options, and woodland owners, of which the Chief Secretary is one. Even to individuals, well over £1 billion has been given to high-rate taxpayers. There have been tax handouts in respect of stamp duty, development land tax, corporation tax, and capital gains tax, and higher rate taxpayers have been given over £1 billion. But none has been given to the people we are discussing tonight.
Tax reliefs total £45 billion—more than the cost of the social security system. There is an imbalance in our affairs. Some Conservative Members have referred to that in relation to the Institute of Fiscal Studies report. Unlike one or two Conservative Members, we do not agree entirely with that report, and nor did the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood). However, it is right to put it on the agenda. We need to find a different way of ordering our affairs, but we are not prepared to discuss a way that takes £10 million off social security benefits so that the Government can use it to give tax handouts to their masters in the City. That is not on offer.
If the Government can come up with a way of ensuring that the money involved in the regulations gets to the people who are eligible to receive it, they will receive our whole-hearted support. But they will not run an effective take-up campaign. They know that about £700 million of social security benefits are not taken up.
The additional requirements regulations increase the allowances for clothing for the first time for a few years. Earlier this year, Parliament discussed massive tax handouts to the rich. Tonight, we are discussing regulations which include sums as little as 75p for stockings and tights for women and 90p for plastic pants for children.
Many of the people for whom such help is available will not receive it, because they do not know about it and because neither they nor the operators of the social security system on the desks — I do not criticise them individually—fully understand the system. If they did,

the Minister and his colleagues would not have to sign so many letters to hon. Members and occasionally send out circular letters to us all saying, "Please do not write to us; go to your local office." Ministers are signing thousands of letters a year, and that it is only the tip of the iceberg.
After five years in office, the Government cannot claim that they have had great success in increasing the take-up of benefits. Frankly, it is not in the interests of the Treasury that the Government should succeed. That is why the DHSS is not given the money to ensure that the benefits that we are being asked to approve get through to our fellow citizens. That is a shame and a moral disgrace and it reflects on the Treasury and DHSS Ministers who go along with it and stay in office.

Mrs. Margaret Beckett: For the second time this evening, we have heard suggestions from the Minister and from Conservative Members—though one or two of them made criticisms — that the Government are being generous to the poorest members of our society. The timing of the presentation of the instruments suggests that most of them are urgently needed.
Most of what the Minister said about the Government's generosity has been demolished by my hon. Friends. I add only one comment to their criticisms. The Minister outlined a list of achievements by the Government, but he failed to mention that they have introduced five pieces of legislation on social security — quite apart from the many amending regulations that seem to crop up with amazing frequency—and every piece of that legislation has contained net savings in the provision made for social security and for the welfare state.
Although the Government may have been forced by circumstances into making some increases, they have done all that they can to take back from other groups among the poor the sums that they have given to some of the most needy. At the same time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) pointed out, they have given, given, and given again to the rich.
The matter of the death grant was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John). The Minister mentioned his anxiety about the different recommendations he had received and the amount of time that would be needed to consider the death grant. The Minister and the Government are inconsistent, in that for changes in something like the death grant there is never enough time. Such matters must be considered thoroughly and reported on. Yet with regulations such as these, which, as the SSAC pointed out, contain 52 changes, for which the draft regulations were not available even to the Committee, let alone to those who wished to comment on them, and for which the consultation period lasted only two months, the Government are in a hurry. They hurry to take away benefits, yet they are dilatory in handing them back, except to the wealthy.
The SSAC pointed out in several contexts the Government's inconsistency in rushing through many of the changes in the proposals while at the same time announcing what they claim will be a fundamental review. As we will probably not have another such debate before the autumn, I point out to the Government that many of us are cynically wondering whether these reviews are simply a cover for a set of decisions that the Government have already made, which are governed by the amount of


money that the Government have decided to make available. That would not be the first time that that has happened. I hope—although I doubt it—that we shall be proved wrong in that respect.
I should like the Under-Secretary, either when he replies to the debate or in a letter, to answer a question about the regulations which deal with allowances for laundry. This is only one question in the myriad of proposals. The SSAC and the Secretary of State referred to the circumstances in which public laundrettes are available. The Under-Secretary will know from his correspondence that it is difficult to see whether the rules will be applied consistently or whether it will be easy and convenient for the benefit offices to say, "If there are other accessible facilities such as a laundrette available, they must be used in all circumstances." When the Minister considers the implementation of the regulations, will he ensure that guidance is given, either in the S manual or however he chooses, so that the regulations are interpreted in the reasonable way suggested by the SSAC and scope for less reasonable interpretation does not exist?
There are plenty of omissions in the regulations. They omit to extend the long-term rate to the unemployed. That is probably the greatest piece of injustice that the Government continue to perpetrate. They omit to restore the 5 per cent. abatement of some benefits and to extend the invalid care allowance—the only benefit where we discriminate against people purely because they are married women. They omit to increase the earnings disregard. Many people have called for that, as they have done for long-term supplementary benefit. That is especially worrying today when the disregard is so small and people fall foul of it for other reasons.
Apart from the sins of omission, there are the sins of commission. The most notorious one is the available scale margin. The Government intend to save £86 million despite their generosity to the poor. Of that figure £74 million is expected to be saved at the expense of pensioners. Few pensioners will share the Government's view that they have been generous to pensioners especially when they realise the amount that the Government will save in these petty ways.
There are delays in the implementation of FIS. The review will take place only on the year's anniversary. That will cost the poorest families tens and perhaps hundreds of pounds. There is a change in the entitlement to child benefit which will, as the Minister must know in his heart, whatever he may choose to say in the Chamber, unquestionably discriminates against Asian families and other ethnic minorities.
Although it is not mentioned at great length in the body of the SSAC comments, I note the final comment on the amending regulations, which refers to the restriction on benefit that will be paid for a child who is born abroad. Has it occurred to the Minister or his advisers that for strict Hindus or Muslims there are restrictions on travel after birth? It is difficult to understand how the Minister can argue in those circumstances that the changes will not be discriminatory. I also note from paragraph 9 of the comments on the proposed changes that they are unlikely to apply to people travelling on business, but only to people travelling on holiday, especially in the circumstances in which many families travel to the Indian subcontinent.
Perhaps the worst aspect of these many complicated and difficult changes are those which penalise initiative among

the people who already have the least hope. I pay tribute to the Conservative Members who had the courage to mention that criticism. The change in the rules with regard to young people who are allowed some period in education and still to draw benefit is, to some extent, welcome; but the underlying philosophy behind it, and the assumption that the rules which were satisfactory when there were plenty of jobs for most people should be even more rigidly applied today, is wholly unsatisfactory and unreasonable. Not only the Government but society will, in the end, suffer from narrowing the initiatives available to young people.
The regulations perpetuate the changes made to the single payments for furniture and other such items, which are desperately needed by many people trapped in often expensive furnished accommodation which, although expensive, is frequently appalling. However, again no hope can be held out to those people because the Government have changed the regulations and deprived them of hope.
The group of changes and the rules confine many of our young people to dead-end jobs, dead-end accommodation and dead-end dole queues. All of us, not just the Government, will suffer from that.
The Minister and some of his hon. Friends have told us repeatedly about the Government's generosity. Has the Minister had an opportunity to study the report commissioned by his department from the Policy Studies Institute on the reform of supplementary benefit? If he has examined it, I do not understand how he can stand at the Dispatch Box with a straight face and talk about the achievements of the Government. An article on the report states:
Three out of five adults are missing standard items of clothing such as a warm coat or change of shoes, both for themselves and their children. More than half are in debt, often over fuel bills. Half run out of money most weeks"—
as did the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Paris) when he tried to live on supplementary benefit.
Apart from that general experience of people who live on supplementary benefit, I quote from the conclusions of the article on the report:
The problem for the Government … is that most changes that would simplify the system look likely either to cost money, or to exclude people from payments which they may not be getting but which, on the evidence of the PSI study, they do actually need.
The Government have made much of the reviews that they are undertaking. When we see those reviews and the choices and decisions which the Government make on them, we shall judge whether they are prepared to have a simplified system that gives a fair entitlement to all. If not, people will not receive payments which they desperately need.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Anthony Nelson.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): Newton.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: He has only one eye.

Mr. Newton: I can see that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) has decided to make me disabled, as well as the Minister responsible for the disabled.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the comments made by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) about the slightly absurd way in which we have ended up debating this large and important series of instruments. It is something that both Front Benches — without revealing any secrets about how the arrangements are come to—and all of us who are concerned might bear in mind for future occasions. I apologise, at least on behalf of the Conservative party, to the hon. Member, who did not feel able to contribute to the debate in the way in which he undoubtedly would have wished. We have noted his point.
I shall try to respond as well and as seriously as I can in the relatively short space of time left to me, to the specific points made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I start by referring to the points made by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie)—I beg the hon. Lady's pardon—Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett).

Mrs. Beckett: There is an important difference.

Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South also regards this as an important distinction. I do not want to upset the pair of them. It is difficult enough to when one upsets one of them.
I noted the remarks made by the hon. Member for Derby, South about laundry additions. She raised a complex point, and it is one that I shall look into and write to her about, as she suggested.
The hon. Members for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) referred to the Newcastle dispute. I place it firmly on record that the origin of the dispute were Government proposals, not dreamed up by a Minister but arising from an audit report conducted by other civil servants, which suggested that we were not running the Newcastle benefit computer system as efficiently and effectively as we could. It suggested that, by changing the working arrangements, we could make economies in public expenditure that we estimate at about £700,000, and not the £40,000 or so that the hon. Member for Oldham, West mentioned. In all seriousness, if he were a Minister, he would also have felt that, faced with such a report, it was right for both senior official management and ministerial management to respond by proposing changes that would maximise efficient use of resources in administering the benefit system. It was in that spirit that we approached the matter.
The hon. Member for Oldham, West spoke very much in terms of protecting the earnings of those who are currently engaged in particular forms of shift working at Newcastle, and we accept that. I know that I can speak for my hon. Friend the Minister in saying that we recognise the proper concerns about protecting earnings of existing workers in that part of the complex. We have already made proposals that would protect them for at least two years, subject to review after that period. We are prepared to consider a negotiation about modifications of those proposals.
However, we should be concerned—it is important to make this point—about the suggestion that we should perpetuate these arrangements and take new people into the system on what can be seen as an artificial and

excessive earnings level. We accept the need to consider the protection of existing workers and we have shown our willingness to do that in the negotiations.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Oldham, West for what he said about welcoming our willingness to accept conciliation by ACAS. If I read his words aright, he was urging the union to accept that also. Generally speaking, he said this in a constructive spirit, which is the way in which we approach this. We are willing to resume negotiations and hope to bring to an end this difficult dispute. I am sure that no hon. Member would wish to see an uprating threatened by any unnecessary continuation of the dispute.
I turn to some of the more contentious issues raised, and shall begin with what has been said about family income supplement. In the course of the many remarks made by Opposition Members, no one acknowledged that the unique factor about FIS is that it is not normally changed during the course of the year's award for any reason other than an uprating. Its whole merit as a benefit and its simplicity of administration stem from the fact that once it has been assessed on the basis of the family's circumstances, including its income at the time of assessment, it stays in payment over a year, regardless of changes. If the family gain an extra child, it does not change. Most importantly of all, if the family's income suddenly increases, even dramatically, it does not change. No other changes in circumstance are taken into account during a year's currency of FIS.
Looking back, it is odd not that we now propose to change the one curiosity of taking account of the uprating alteration, but that from the very beginning it was felt sensible to maintain the rate of benefit throughout the year in which the award has currency. In the context of that basic method of operating FIS, I believe that the proposal that the uprating changes should also be excluded from consideration until the award falls due for renewal makes sense.
However, I accept that there may be problems this year, particularly as FIS awards are normally for 52 weeks and, for reasons connected with the calendar, there will be a 53-week benefit year this year. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Minister was unable to include in his speech our transitional proposals to help to deal with that problem. In general, as I have said, most renewal awards will be treated in the same way as new awards, in that the assessment will be based on the prescribed levels applying at the date of commencement of the award. But there are two easements. First, people whose awards terminate on 19 November, and who successfully renew their awards, will receive one week at a rate based on the 1983 levels and 52 weeks at a rate based on the 1984 levels. Had it not been for the fact that the period between the 1983 and 1984 upratings was 53 weeks, they would have been able to renew this year with the advantage of the new levels, and we do not think that they should be penalised because of the coincidence of the 53-week period and the change that we propose.
Secondly, those who make a successful renewal claim following an award that terminates on either 5 or 12 November 1984 will be given the choice of an award based on the 1983 levels, but running consecutively from their previous award, or an award based on the 1984 levels but running from 27 November. Effectively, that means that those people can break the cycle of renewal and obtain the advantage of the 1984 levels if that is what they wish to


do, rather earlier than they could do under the general provisions now existing. I apologise if that seems slightly complicated, but I thought it important that I should try to make it as clear as possible.
The question of child benefit overseas exercised the minds of the hon. Members for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), and several other hon. Members. I should make it clear that the majority of those who receive benefit under the current rules for up to 26 weeks travel not to the Indian subcontinent but to the middle east, the United States of America and South Africa. Only 17 per cent. travel to the Indian subcontinent. In other words, 83 per cent. do not.
Of course, I accept that hon. Members have expressed sincerely felt concern. However, we have given an undertaking to the Social Security Advisory Committee that we shall monitor the effect of the proposed new regulations on families in general. I ask the House to accept that these regulations were not in any way conceived as an attack on the interests of ethnic minority families. Indeed, when considering the proposals, Ministers specifically asked for the figures that I have just given, to ensure that they would not appear to be—and could not statistically be shown to be — directed at ethnic minority families, but rather at the more general problem of people leaving this country for some considerable time. In those circumstances, most reasonable people would feel that such people should not continue to be entitled to child benefit.
Another point that exercised hon. Members on both sides of the House was study by the unemployed. As this whole area will be considered by the review of benefits for children and young people, I do not feel it appropriate tonight to respond beyond that to the broader comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) and others expressed.
The three months' qualifying period is not affected by the regulations. Our purpose is only to make as sensible and workable as possible the existing arrangements, which are necessary within the existing system for distinguishing between those who are genuinely unemployed and seeking work, whom we do not wish to prevent studying while they are unemployed, and those who are, in effect, full-time students who have opted out of the employment market.

Ms. Clare Short: The Minister is probably aware that Youth Aid did research—I was involved in parts of it—on this question which showed that the regulations were so complex that few young people were taking the benefit of them. It showed that some colleges had gone to enormous trouble to provide 15-hour courses to comply with the old regulations. This change will destroy those courses. It will, therefore, damage the opportunity for young, unemployed people who want to study.

Mr. Newton: I accept that this is a complex area. Against what the hon. Lady said, there were cases where youngsters, under the old 15-hour rule, were ruled out on homework grounds because homework was included. It was a muddy area which was causing increasing confusion. We have now reduced the period from 15 to 12 hours but have excluded homework, so that there is absolute clarity.
Additional hours can be spent in doing homework. Many youngsters who were cut out by the previous rules, because of the amount of homework they did, now have

clarity. I believe that it will be much easier—the SSAC shared this view—for courses, and, above all, for young people to plan their activities in the certainty of what the rules are, rather than leaving it to accidents of interpretation in benefit offices.

Ms. Clare Short: rose——

Mr. Newton: I must not give way further.
Frankly, I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of colleges which had carefully devised courses to get within a rule of a vague character to devise courses to get round a rule which is much clearer and more straightforward.
I hope that I do not offend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) when I say that in two respects his contribution was significantly below his usual level. His comparisons of the real value of child benefit with the tangle of different tax allowances for children of different ages that existed in the past was so meaningless as to be positively misleading.
The hon. Gentleman was able to make the point only by taking the most extreme case. If the same extreme case were applied to the record of the last Labour Government, one could say that the real value of child support fell sharply and dramatically from £8 a week to less than £7. I do not press that charge against the hon. Gentleman, but if he uses misleading statistics, he must not complain if he gets them quoted back at him, and I hope that he will not do it again.
I say not only to the hon. Member for Perry Barr but to the whole House that the notion that, whatever we may do in the uprating, this Government are not interested in getting benefits to those who should have them, is absolute and utter nonsense. In the last two years, claims for both mobility allowance and attendance allowance have risen by 20 per cent., with considerable encouragement from the Government. We have recently introduced a free telephone service designed to improve our advice and information services throughout the country. The take-up of one-parent benefit has risen sharply and we are continuing to make extensive efforts to get the benefits; to the people who deserve to have them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.

Motion made—[Dr. Boyson] —and Question put,

That the draft Supplementary Benefit Uprating and Additional Requirements Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved:—

The House divided: Ayes 244, Noes 168.

Division No. 418]
[10 pm


AYES


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)


Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)
Clegg, Sir Walter


Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)
Colvin, Michael


Bottomley, Peter
Coombs, Simon


Bottomley, Mrs Virginia
Cope, John


Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Crouch, David


Boyson, Dr Rhodes
Dorrell, Stephen


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.


Buck, Sir Antony
Dykes, Hugh


Burt, Alistair
Emery, Sir Peter


Butcher, John
Farr, Sir John


Butler, Hon Adam
Favell, Anthony


Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (W'ton S)
Fenner, Mrs Peggy


Cash, William
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey


Chapman, Sydney
Fletcher, Alexander


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Fookes, Miss Janet


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Forman, Nigel






Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Luce, Richard


Forth, Eric
McCrindle, Robert


Fox, Marcus
McCurley, Mrs Anna


Franks, Cecil
Macfarlane, Neil


Fraser, Peter (Angus East)
MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)


Freeman, Roger
MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)


Fry, Peter
Maclean, David John


Gale, Roger
McNair-Wilson, P. (New F'st)


Galley, Roy
McQuarrie, Albert


Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)
Madel, David


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Malone, Gerald


Glyn, Dr Alan
Maples, John


Goodhart, Sir Philip
Marland, Paul


Goodlad, Alastair
Marlow, Antony


Gow, Ian
Mather, Carol


Grant, Sir Anthony
Maude, Hon Francis


Green way, Harry
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin


Gregory, Conal
Mayhew, Sir Patrick


Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Mellor, David


Grist, Ian
Merchant, Piers


Ground, Patrick
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Gummer, John Selwyn
Miller, Hal (B'grove)


Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)
Mills, Iain (Meriden)


Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)


Hanley, Jeremy
Miscampbell, Norman


Hargreaves, Kenneth
Mitchell, David (NW Hants)


Harris, David
Moate, Roger


Harvey, Robert
Montgomery, Fergus


Haselhurst, Alan
Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)


Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael
Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)


Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)
Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)


Hawksley, Warren
Murphy, Christopher


Hayes, J.
Needham, Richard


Hayhoe, Barney
Nelson, Anthony


Hayward, Robert
Newton, Tony


Heathcoat-Amory, David
Nicholls, Patrick


Heddle, John
Normanton, Tom


Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael
Norris, Steven


Hicks, Robert
Onslow, Cranley


Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Oppenheim, Philip


Hind, Kenneth
Ottaway, Richard


Hirst, Michael
Page, Sir John (Harrow W)


Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)
Page, Richard (Herts SW)


Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)
Parris, Matthew


Holt, Richard
Patten, John (Oxford)


Hooson, Tom
Pawsey, James


Hordern, Peter
Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian


Howard, Michael
Pollock, Alexander


Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Powell, William (Corby)


Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)
Powley, John


Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Hunt, David (Wirral)
Proctor, K. Harvey


Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Raffan, Keith


Hunter, Andrew
Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)


Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Renton, Tim


Jackson, Robert
Rhodes James, Robert


Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick
Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas


Jessel, Toby
Ridsdale, Sir Julian


Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey
Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)


Jones, Robert (W Herts)
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Roe, Mrs Marion


Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Rowe, Andrew


King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Ryder, Richard


King, Rt Hon Tom
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Knight, Gregory (Derby N)
St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.


Knight, Mrs Jill (Edgbaston)
Sayeed, Jonathan


Knowles, Michael
Scott, Nicholas


Knox, David
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Lang, Ian
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')


Lawler, Geoffrey
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Lawrence, Ivan
Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)


Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel
Shersby, Michael


Lee, John (Pendle)
Silvester, Fred


Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Sims, Roger


Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Skeet, T. H. H.


Lightbown, David
Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)


Lilley, Peter
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)


Lloyd, Ian (Havant)
Soames, Hon Nicholas


Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Spencer, Derek


Lord, Michael
Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)





Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Vaughan, Sir Gerard


Squire, Robin
Viggers, Peter


Stanbrook, Ivor
Waddington, David


Stanley, John
Wakeham, Rt Hon John


Steen, Anthony
Walden, George


Stern, Michael
Wall, Sir Patrick


Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)
Waller, Gary


Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Walters, Dennis


Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Wardle, C. (Bexhill)


Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Warren, Kenneth


Stokes, John
Watson, John


Stradling Thomas, J.
Watts, John


Sumberg, David
Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)


Taylor, John (Solihull)
Wheeler, John


Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Whitfield, John


Temple-Morris, Peter
Whitney, Raymond


Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Wiggin, Jerry


Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Winterton, Nicholas


Thornton, Malcolm
Wolfson, Mark


Thurnham, Peter
Wood, Timothy


Townend, John (Bridlington)
Yeo, Tim


Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)
Young, Sir George (Acton)


Tracey, Richard
Younger, Rt Hon George


Trippier, David



Trotter, Neville
Tellers for the Ayes:


Twinn, Dr Ian
Mr. John Major and Mr. Michael Neubert.


van Straubenzee. Sir W.





NOES


Abse, Leo
Dubs, Alfred


Adams, Allen (Paisley N)
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.


Alton, David
Eadie, Alex


Anderson, Donald
Eastham, Ken


Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Edwards, Bob (W'h'mpt'n SE)


Ashdown, Paddy
Ellis, Raymond


Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Evans, John (St. Helens N)


Ashton, Joe
Fatchett, Derek


Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)
Faulds, Andrew


Barnett, Guy
Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)


Beckett, Mrs Margaret
Flannery, Martin


Beith, A. J.
Forrester, John


Bermingham, Gerald
Foster, Derek


Bidwell, Sydney
Foulkes, George


Blair, Anthony
Fraser, J. (Norwood)


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald


Boyes, Roland
Freud, Clement


Bray, Dr Jeremy
George, Bruce


Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John


Brown, R. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne N)
Godman, Dr Norman


Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)
Golding, John


Bruce, Malcolm
Gould, Bryan


Buchan, Norman
Hamilton, James (M'well N)


Callaghan, Rt Hon J.
Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)


Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &amp; M)
Hardy, Peter


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Harman, Ms Harriet


Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)
Harrison, Rt Hon Walter


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Haynes, Frank


Cartwright, John
Healey, Rt Hon Denis


Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Heffer, Eric S.


Clarke, Thomas
Hogg, N. (C'nauld &amp; Kilsyth)


Clay, Robert
Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)


Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)


Cohen, Harry
Hoyle, Douglas


Coleman, Donald
Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)


Conlan, Bernard
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)


Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)
Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)


Corbett, Robin
Janner, Hon Greville


Cowans, Harry
John, Brynmor


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Johnston, Russell


Craigen, J. M.
Kennedy, Charles


Crowther, Stan
Kilroy-Silk, Robert


Dalyell, Tarn
Kirkwood, Archy


Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)
Lamond, James


Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)
Leadbitter, Ted


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)
Leighton, Ronald


Deakins, Eric
Lewis, Terence (Worsley)


Dewar, Donald
Litherland, Robert


Dixon, Donald
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)


Dobson, Frank
Lofthouse, Geoffrey


Dormand, Jack
Loyden, Edward






McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Rooker, J. W.


McKay, Allen (Penistone)
Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)


McKelvey, William
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor
Rowlands, Ted


McTaggart, Robert
Sedgemore, Brian


Madden, Max
Sheerman, Barry


Marek, Dr John
Sheldon, Rt Hon R.


Marshall, David (Shettleston)
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Maxton, John
Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)


Maynard, Miss Joan
Silkin, Rt Hon J.


Meacher, Michael
Smith, C.(Isl'ton S &amp; F'bury)


Meadowcroft, Michael
Snape, Peter


Mikardo, Ian
Soley, Clive


Millan, Rt Hon Bruce
Spearing, Nigel


Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Strang, Gavin


Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)
Straw, Jack


Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)


Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Thorne, Stan (Preston)


Nellist, David
Tinn, James


Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
Torney, Tom


O'Brien, William
Wardell, Gareth (Gower)


Park, George
Wareing, Robert


Parry, Robert
Weetch, Ken


Patchett, Terry
Welsh, Michael


Pavitt, Laurie
White, James


Penhaligon, David
Wigley, Dafydd


Pike, Peter
Williams, Rt Hon A.


Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)
Wilson, Gordon


Prescott, John
Winnick, David


Radice, Giles
Woodall, Alec


Redmond, M.
Young, David (Bolton SE)


Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)



Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)
Tellers for the Noes:


Robertson, George
Mr. John McWilliam and Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe.


Rogers, Allan

Question accordingly agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the capital Transfer Tax Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—Mr. David Hunt.]

SOCIAL SECURITY

Resolved
That the draft Child Benefit (Up-Rating) Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That he draft Family Income Supplements (Computation) Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That the draft Pensioners' Lump Sum Payments Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.
That the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Amendment Regulations 1984, which were laid before this House on 6th July, be approved.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

Orders of the Day — Capital Transfer Tax Bill [Lords]

Considered in Committee.

[MR. ERNEST ARMSTRONG in the Chair]

Clauses 1 to 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 16

GRANT OF TENANCIES OF AGRICULTURAL PROPERTY

Amendment made: No. 1, in page 9, line 33, leave out subsection (2) and add—
'(2) Expressions used in subsection (1) above and in Chapter II of Part V of this Act have the same meaning in that subsection as in that Chapter.'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Clause 16, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 17 to 114 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 115

PRELIMINARY

Amendment made: No. 2, in page 77, line 20 at end insert—
(3A) For the purposes of this Chapter the breeding and rearing of horses on a stud farm and the grazing of horses in connection with those activities shall be taken to be agriculture and any buildings used in connection with those activities to be farm buildings.'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Clause 115, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 116 to 164 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 165

TAX ON CAPITAL GAINS

Amendment made: No. 3, in page 111, line 39, at end add —
'(3) In any case where—

(a) payment of an amount of capital gains tax is postponed by virtue of Schedule 14 to the Finance Act 1984, and
(b) any of that capital gains tax becomes payable in accordance with paragraph 11 of that Schedule by reason of the receipt of a capital payment by a close relative of the beneficiary, as mentioned in sub-paragraph (3) of that paragraph, and
(c) all or part of the capital gains tax becoming so payable is paid by the close relative,

the payment by the close relative shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as made in satisfaction of a liability of his.'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Clause 165, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 166 to 168 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 169

FARM COTTAGES

Amendment made: No. 4, in page 113, line 36, at end add—
'(2) Expressions used in subsection (1) above and in Chapter II of Part V of this Act have the same meaning in that subsection as in that Chapter.'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Clause 169, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 170 to 219 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 220

INSPECTION OF PROPERTY

Amendment made: No. 5, in page 142, line 37, leave out
'or, in Northern Ireland, to a fine not exceeding £20.'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Clause 220, as amended, order to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 221 to 278 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules 1 to 7 agreed to.

Schedule 8

CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS

Amendments made: No. 6, in page 195, line 3, leave out sub-paragraph (2) and insert—
(2) In subsection (3)(d)(ii) for the words "Chapter 11 of Part IV of the Finance Act 1982" there shall be substituted the words "any provision, apart from section 79, of Chapter III of Part III of the Capital Transfer Tax Act 1984".
(2A) In subsection (5)(a)after the words "Act 1976" there shall be inserted the words "or section 31 of the Capital Transfer Tax Act 1984" and for the words "section 76 of that Act" there shall be substituted the words "section 30(2) of the Capital Transfer Tax Act 1984".'

No. 7, in page 195, line 13, leave out sub-paragraph (2) and insert—
(2) In paragraph 18(2)—

(a) after the words "section 22 of the Finance Act 1975" there shall be inserted the words "or section 4 of the Capital Transfer Tax Act 1984", for the words "that Act" there shall be substituted the words "the Finance Act 1975" and after the words "section 77 of the Finance Act 1976" there shall be inserted the words "or under section 31 of the Capital Transfer Tax Act 1984"; and
(b) in paragraph (a), for the words from "subsection (7)" to "Act 1976" there shall be substituted the words "section 32 of, or paragraph 3 of Schedule 5 to, the Capital Transfer Tax Act 1984".'.—[The Solicitor-General.]

Schedule 8, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 9

REPEALS

Amendments made: No. 8, in page 201, line 23, column 3, at end insert—

'Section 47'.

No. 9, in page 201, column 3, leave out line 29 and insert—

'Sections 101 to 107.'.

No. 10, in page 201, line 31, column 3, at end insert—

'In Schedule 14, paragraph 16.'.

No. 11, in page 201, column 3, leave out line 32, and insert—

'In Schedule 21, paragraphs 1 to 17, 19(b) and 20 to 26.'.—The Solicitor-General.]

Schedule 9, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported, with amendments.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 58 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.

Citizens' Band Radio (Emergency Services)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Hunt.]

Mr. Frank Haynes: The Government brought in legislation in favour of the licensing of citizens band radio. I welcomed that legislation. I welcomed the decisions that were made. However, one result of that legislation is that far too many people are now breaking the rules—or, in fact, breaking the law. Many of them have amplifiers which are illegal. They are far too powerful. The code name for them is "burners". When people use such appliances, problems are created for the emergency services. For example, if a fire appliance is sent to an incident, more often than not in the county of Nottinghamshire one finds that the appliance, once it is on its way, has great difficulty in keeping in close contact by radio with the central control because CB enthusiasts block out contact with central control. It is easy to understand the seriousness of that. A life that could be saved might be lost because an appliance cannot receive directions. Moreover, an ambulance might be required, but the firemen cannot contact control to ask for one because of interference. The result is that a fireman must find a telephone.
The Nottinghamshire fire brigade has tried hard to overcome the problem. It has spent a fair amount of public money on filters. They have not worked. The amplifiers that some people use are far too powerful and well above what is allowed for by the regulations. Some aerials are massive and also beyond the regulations. In the main, CB enthusiasts are sensible. It is only a few who cause problems.
Communications experts have identified several reasons why approved and licensed radio equipment becomes illegal. They are, CB radio equipment being serviced or retuned by unqualified people in the mistaken belief that the transmission power will be increased, powerful booster amplifiers being used to override other transmissions and to increase the distance of cover, and illegal radio aerials being installed on rooftops or high masts.
I should like the Minister to give some idea how he will deal with this serious problem. I am not speaking just for my constituency but the whole of Nottinghamshire, as emergency services throughout the county have contacted me. If the problem is nationwide—it might be—no doubt the Minister will know about it.
I recently tabled a question to the Minister asking him how many prosecutions there have been for breaching the regulations. He said that, in the first half of this year, 688 people had been prosecuted under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 for the unlicensed use of CB radio equipment. It should be borne in mind that some people have licences and equipment that they should not have. The prosecutions to which the Minister referred relate only to unlicensed use. I appreciate that the Department has a difficult job, but it is responsible for sorting the problem out.
I know that the Minister could stand at the Dispatch Box tonight and use all sorts of technical phrases associated with the problem. I do not want him to do that. I do not want to go into it myself, as long lists are involved. The


important point is that the nation, especially in Nottinghamshire, has a first-class emergency service which is being interfered with. That is costing a lot of money and we are not getting very far in finding a solution. It could cost lives—indeed, it may have cost lives in the past.
It is my responsibility to bring the matter here, and to hear the Minister's replies from his Department. I hope that we can overcome the problem for the people who require emergency services and do away with this sort of interference, in the interests of all concerned.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. John Butcher): I shall accept the guidance of the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and not go into the technical details of the phenomena which are causing any distortion of radio signals.
I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about the problems caused to the emergency services in his constituency, and in the Nottingham area. The hon. Gentleman has done the House a great service. The debate gives us the chance to re-assert the fact that the mass of CB radio users are responsible people but that there is an irresponsible minority which, shall we say, has a less than agreeable attitude to life and has perhaps used radios in a way that may inadvertently have caused serious problems for the emergency services.
Interference to the radio communications of the emergency services, from whatever source, is a very serious matter. The RIS, which is currently operated by British Telecom, will be transferred to the DTI on 7 August, with an option for the employees to decide between that date and 2 October whether to become DTI employees. With that in mind the Department has a great interest, in that we shall have a total responsibility for the operation of RIS. The hon. Gentleman's remarks are timely. If the hon. Gentleman finds that I am somewhat

vague when trying to explain some of the difficulties in Nottinghamshire, it is only because we are in a delicate position as the transfer of control is about to be effected. Before August, total control cannot be exercised by my Department.
It is important to bear in mind that in the area of Nottinghamshire over which RIS operates, the total complement of staff has been reduced, for one reason or another, from four to one, through early retirement or retirement of past employees on compassionate grounds.
It is right that I should send a full copy of the report of tonight's debate to BT, and ask it in the light of the 25 per cent. staff coverage whether they will take the hon. Gentleman's remarks as seriously as I have done, and to find some way in the short term of addressing the problem caused to the emergency services in his area.
When the RIS is within the ambit of my Department after the transfer we shall see what we can do to address the priorities. We shall certainly put the problem of interference to emergency services as a top priority for the work of whoever will sponsor and administer the Department.
It is with those observations in mind that I endorse what the hon,. Gentleman has said. Before I resume my seat, I offer him the reassurance that under the new Telecommunications Act for the first time we shall have powers to confiscate illegal equiptment—radios, aerials not to specification, boosters used unfairly, AM radios, and so on. We shall be able to take the equipment away as evidence, which we cannot do at the moment. The Government are helping with those powers. We believe that we should focus on the more serious aspects of interference caused by CB. In particular, the problem that the hon. Gentleman has in his area will be treated with the highest priority.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.